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Fortinet FortiSandbox vs Microsoft Defender for Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiSandbox
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Threat Deception Platforms (6th)
Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (4th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSandbox is 5.4%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 4.5%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiSandbox5.4%
Microsoft Defender for Identity4.5%
Other90.1%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdelhamid Saber - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security & Infra Technology Systems Engineer at BARQ Systems
Enhanced network security with adaptable integration and really good support
We use FortiSandbox for scanning files and images that pass through our networks. It integrates with different devices, such as five adapters and other Fortinet devices It is time-saving and more secure. It saves us from a lot of antivirus and anti-malware issues. The adapter is beneficial as it…
RK
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Protect on-premises and hybrid environments with advanced threat detection and seamless integration
Our Active Directory implementation is a hybrid one. The advanced threat protection is one of the strengths of Microsoft Defender for Identity, as it utilizes user and entity analytics and can detect indicative attacks. It identifies lateral movements, privilege escalations, and alerts on potential attacks. The tool is also used for security posture assessment. The seamless integration with other Microsoft solutions within our Microsoft-centric environment is also a major advantage.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is easy to manage."
"The solution is very good because it catches a lot of threats in emails."
"The analysis engine is a very valuable feature."
"What I find most valuable, is that it is easy to use."
"Compared to other solutions, it's easy to configure and implement because of the templates. The timing of scanning files is faster."
"FortiSandbox helps us handle unknown threats. Every vendor is competing for who can detect an unknown threat the fastest. Fortinet is competitive in the market."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that the performance it offers to users is good, making it useful for us in our company."
"Fortinet FortiSandbox puts suspicious files in quarantine, analyzes for virus risks, and lets them out of quarantine if it detects no risk."
"The solution offers excellent visibility into threats."
"It is easy to set up. Based on the number of devices you would like to set up, you can use scripts, Group Policy, etc. It takes five minutes to set up."
"The feature I like most is that you can create your own customized detection rules. It has a lot of default alerts and rules, but you can customize them according to your business needs."
"All the integration it has with different Microsoft packages, like Teams and Office, is good."
"The most valuable aspect is its connection to Microsoft Sentinel and Defender for Endpoint, and giving exact timelines for incidents and when certain events occured during an incident."
"We do not see any issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Identity. I can say it is 100% stable."
"The integration into the Microsoft Defender ecosystem is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Identity."
"This solution has advanced a lot over the last few years."
 

Cons

"The use cases in Fortinet FortiSandbox are not good. It is difficult to upload a custom VM for Fortinet FortiSandbox. The integration of Fortinet FortiSandbox with other Fortinet or FortiGate firewalls is not good. VMs are already installed in the hardware and are working fine, but we tried to approve the custom VM many times but did not succeed."
"It would be better if we could integrate FortiSandbox with endpoint security solutions."
"If you were to compare prices between vendors and manufacturers, you would see that the lowest equipment in the Sandbox line is quite expensive for a new customer."
"The product is good but it could be speedier. In addition, it's quite complex."
"It would be better if it had support for Mac and Linux."
"For additional features, maybe a form of execution pain files in a non-virtual environment because it has threats that identify when it is being run in a virtual machine."
"There could be more templates and a higher number of simulated VMs to configure more use cases. Sometimes we need to configure many use cases in many different environments, and if the number of VMs that we configure is limited, we have to remove some and reconfigure the environment if we need another environment."
"For the MSSPs, it would be great if the product could display all the threat chains on a dashboard since it is an area where the tool is currently lacking."
"One area that needs improvement is the number of alerts generated, leading to alert fatigue."
"Microsoft Defender for Identity does not save me time, but I think it is the way that I secure the data."
"The tracking instance needs to be configured appropriately."
"The impact of the sensors on the domain controllers can be quite high depending on your loads. I don't know if there's any room for improvement there, but that's one of the things that might be improved."
"The documentation provided by Microsoft is often seen as a waste of time."
"I would like to be able to do remediation from the platform because it is just a scanner right now. If you onboard a device, it shows you what is happening, but you can't use it to fix things. You need to go into the system to fix it instead."
"When the data leaves the cloud, there are security issues."
"And when you are working in a priority IP address, Identity is not able to know that those IPs are from the company. It sees that the IPs are from Taiwan or from Hong Kong or from India, even though they are internal IPs, resulting in a lot of false positives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet FortiSandbox is a nominally priced product, so I would not say that it is a very cheap tool."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The price is competitive."
"I rate the product's pricing a five or six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSandbox is expensive."
"Fortinet is more reasonable than Palo Alto."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSandbox is not expensive."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. We have an additional feature that is integrated with S5, which is working well."
"Microsoft Defender for Identity comes as part of the Microsoft E5 licensing stack."
"Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."
"It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."
"The product is costly, and we had multiple discussions with accounting to receive a discounted rate. However, on the open market, the tool is expensive."
"You won't be able to change your tenants from where you deploy them. For example, if you select Canada, they will charge you based on Canadian pricing. If you are also in London, when you deploy in Canada, the pound is higher than Canadian dollars, but your platform resources are billable in Canadian dollars. Using your pounds to pay for any of these things will be cheaper. Or, if you deploy in London, they will charge you based on your local currency."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSandbox?
The real-time analysis capability of FortiSandbox is beneficial for email analysis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSandbox?
I think it's affordable. For the six to seven months of usage, the cost has been reasonable.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSandbox?
We sometimes face a delay in email scanning due to not having multiple virtual machines. Improvements could be made in dynamic scanning, scanning all email components such as URLs and attachments, ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I really would have to sit down to think about how Microsoft Defender for Identity can be improved. I didn't take stock in what needs to be improved because I appreciated having the tools right the...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Identity include Conditional Access, checking risky users, remediating risky users, and user sign-ins. I can easily remediate or determine what the user...
 

Also Known As

FortiSandbox
Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiSandbox vs. Microsoft Defender for Identity and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.