Huntress Managed EDR vs Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting comparison

Huntress Managed EDR vs. Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting

Download the complete report

Helped 902,894 peers since 2012

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

Huntress Managed EDR

Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

1st

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th)

Microsoft Defender Experts ...

Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

19th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of Huntress Managed EDR is 4.9%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Huntress Managed EDR	4.9%
Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting	1.5%
Other	93.6%

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

Featured Reviews

Abhishek Saini

Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT

Managed detection has transformed incident response and now delivers faster, focused protection

Overall, my experience with Huntress Managed EDR has been very positive. If I were to suggest improvements, I would like to see more advanced customization and reporting capabilities, particularly for MSPs managing multiple clients. For example, additional dashboard customization, more granular alert filtering options, and enhanced executive level reporting would help teams present security insights more effectively to their clients. Deeper integrations with a broader range of third party security and IT management platforms could also streamline workflows and reduce the need to switch between multiple tools. Another area of improvement would be expanding automation options for common remediation tasks, allowing security teams to respond even more quickly to certain types of threats while maintaining appropriate control. These are more enhancements than shortcomings, as Huntress Managed EDR already provides strong threat detection, excellent SOC support, and an easy-to-manage platform that delivers significant value in day-to-day operations. A few additional enhancements would make the platform even stronger, especially for MSPs managing a large number of endpoints and clients. From a user interface perspective, I would like to see more customizable dashboards that allow engineers to tailor views based on the client's priorities, threat levels, or operational metrics. Another useful feature would be additional automation and authorization options for common response actions such as isolating devices, initiating remediation workflows, or integrating with ticketing systems and SIEM platforms. Overall, these would be valuable additions, but they do not take away from the core strength of Huntress Managed EDR.

Read full review

Mondher-Smii

Cybersecurity Manager at Insomea

Has supported clients in managing incidents through clear pricing and hybrid deployment options

What really stands out about Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is that it's easy to use. The cost is clear, and the pricing is transparent. The onboarding of the product on the customer's environment is straightforward. We can use it in a hybrid environment, in the cloud, or on-premise environment. This is the main advantage regarding this product. If it's configured correctly, everything will be good, resilient, and secure, which supports threat mitigation efforts depending on the configuration on the tenant and the parameters on Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting. Threat intelligence updates have some impact on our overall security posture. They give us external eyes regarding threat actors, which is good. It's very helpful to enrich the SIEM, which is Microsoft Sentinel. It's a good feature that we can include threat intel on the product.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Huntress Managed EDR eliminates the need to outsource expensive security tools or analysts, avoiding the high costs associated with external solutions."

"Huntress Managed EDR has improved our security posture and has provided peace of mind for myself as well as the firm partners that our security stance can not only meet the minimum requirements but actually positions us well to protect our environment from modern and emerging threats."

"Huntress Managed EDR is probably the easiest solution to use, both to deploy and to maintain, of all the product lines and vendor partnerships we have."

"Because of the pricing, performance, and usability, Huntress Managed EDR is without a doubt the best EDR solution for small businesses that I've ever seen."

"It is clear, simple, and easy to use. There are things that I can automate in terms of escalation, but if I want to go into the settings and play with it, I can. They provide detailed remediation steps, explaining why an issue is a problem and what steps to take."

"The stability is perfect."

"Huntress has improved our security dramatically."

"The most valuable aspect of Huntress is its ability to isolate legacy systems from the network, preventing the spread of threats."

More Huntress Managed EDR pros

"The best feature of this solution is that it is an integrated and comprehensive solution for the entire Microsoft ecosystem."

"Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting helps my customers detect or prevent emerging threats that are not yet published but Microsoft has visibility into."

"What really stands out about Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is that it's easy to use, the cost is clear, and the pricing is transparent, with straightforward onboarding in hybrid, cloud, or on-premise environments."

"Easy to use is what my customers say is the biggest benefit of Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting for them."

"The solution helps to detect some suspicious items for us and our clients."

Cons

"If Huntress decides to follow the path that SentinelOne and CrowdStrike seem to not understand isn't what their clients want, which is handing off their SOC to an AI, then we might be considering other options."

"I'd like it if Huntress could scan for software that's out of date or has open vulnerabilities. That would be useful for us. Scanning for vulnerable software would be helpful. Also, we've set it up to create a ticket in our ticketing system when there's an alert. It would be nice if closing that ticket would also close the Huntress alert. It doesn't do that right now, but they're working on adding that feature."

"The existing features are perfect. However, I think they could add a more robust set of security features like dark web scanning, penetration testing, and risk assessment for clients. We would have one tool for everything. We wouldn't have to go to multiple vendors to pull something together. That would be more beneficial for us."

"There are some drawbacks in Huntress Managed EDR, particularly with the security awareness training aspect which is more manual than expected compared to something like KnowBe4."

"It would be nice if Huntress Managed EDR started adding additional features that some of the other competitors have, but obviously, to keep it lightweight, they cannot pack too much into it."

"The alert emails that they send out with the different portions of their product sometimes are not similarly formatted, which makes automatically processing those alerts a bit more difficult in our PSA."

"Not every time, but sometimes when we click on the remediation, the auto-resolution of the alert, the screen gets stuck, and I need to contact support so they can confirm the remediation was applied, and they have to close the ticket."

"In terms of room for improvement for Huntress Managed EDR, I think that if they could work with maybe other antivirus vendors to sort of work together with those, it would be beneficial because I know they work with Microsoft Defender, but we chose not to do that."

More Huntress Managed EDR cons

"We tried the proactive threat hunting feature, but it was not a good experience with Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting. It created more trouble than expected with false positives and non-expected answers."

"As a partner, Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting could be improved by getting earlier threat detection signals so we could proactively research on our own end and help support a campaign to raise awareness as well as proactive response."

"There is a lot of change in a small period. This might not be helpful for IT administrators and users."

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."

"The price of the solution is costly, which I find significant."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It works well for an MSP."

"Huntress has a favourable pricing structure, and I appreciate the cost-effectiveness compared to previous solutions."

"The cost-effectiveness of Huntress is much better compared to BlackPoint. Although Huntress does not offer all the finer details that BlackPoint does, it remains much more competitive in pricing."

"Huntress is an easy sell to clients because it does all the heavy lifting. Sometimes, they will buck a little at the price because they want a free antivirus or EDR. We tell them that we use Huntress on all our machines. That is our standard process for all the machines we roll out. When we give that advice, people are pretty willing to say okay."

"The pricing model for Huntress is similar to competitors and is charged per endpoint."

"We haven't had any problems with Huntress' pricing. We're at 250 workstations, and we've grown considerably this year. They've been able to handle everything that we've thrown at them within that time frame. They're also reducing the price based on how many endpoints we add."

"I rate the product pricing six out of ten for the Malaysian market. However, I would rate it a three out of ten for the Australian, New Zealand, or Singapore markets."

"Huntress is priced fairly for the services and value it provides."

More Huntress Managed EDR pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

24%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	62
Midsize Enterprise	6

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Huntress?

I believe that the new support feature they've added, the managed endpoint protection and response, should be included as part of Huntress Managed EDR. It doesn't make sense for those to be two sep...

What is your primary use case for Huntress?

My main use case for Huntress Managed EDR is that it lets me sleep at night, knowing that the Huntress team is making sure that all of our devices are protected, and monitoring those alerts means t...

What advice do you have for others considering Huntress?

The twenty-four hour per day human-led SOC support from Huntress Managed EDR is probably the biggest reason why we're on Huntress, so we are keeping that. My advice to others looking into using Hun...

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting?

As a partner, Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting could be improved by getting earlier threat detection signals so we could proactively research on our own end and help support a campaign to rai...

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting?

As a working security partner, my main use case for Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is that many of our customers also have Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting and really find a lot of va...

What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting?

As a partner, there can be some concern that Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is taking away some of our business because they're providing a solution that we also provide. However, the team ...

Kaseya 365 vs Huntress Managed EDR

Comparisons

Compared 6% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Huntress Managed EDR

Compared 5% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR vs Huntress Managed EDR

Compared 5% of the time

Bitdefender MDR vs Huntress Managed EDR

Compared 5% of the time

SentinelOne Wayfinder Threat Detection and Response vs Huntress Managed EDR

Compared 4% of the time

More Huntress Managed EDR Competitors

SentinelOne Wayfinder Threat Detection and Response vs Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting

Compared 18% of the time

eSentire MDR for Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting

Compared 11% of the time

Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting

Compared 9% of the time

Secureworks Taegis Managed XDR / MDR vs Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting

Compared 6% of the time

Unit 42 Managed Detection and Response vs Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting Competitors

Product Reports

Huntress Managed EDR

Download Huntress Managed EDR product report

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting

Download Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting product report

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting report

Overview

Huntress Managed EDR provides round-the-clock threat detection, incident response, and remediation services. It offers a cost-effective security solution tailored for small to medium businesses, integrating seamlessly with Microsoft Defender to bolster cybersecurity without needing extensive security personnel.

Huntress Managed EDR specializes in comprehensive threat-hunting and proactive defense, designed to operate alongside existing antivirus tools like Microsoft Defender. It delivers continuous monitoring and advanced threat detection to protect endpoints from threats beyond traditional antivirus capabilities. The platform features a user-oriented interface enabling efficient endpoint management and security. While valued for its 24/7 security operations and threat response, Huntress faces certain challenges such as enhancing reporting capabilities, expanding integration with third-party systems, and advancing its XDR functionalities. Users seek improved API capabilities, streamlined report generation, and broader Macintosh support to elevate their experience with the tool.

What are the key features?

24/7 SOC: Continuous monitoring and rapid threat response by expert analysts.
Threat Hunting: Active detection of complex threats that bypass traditional AV.
Proactive Incident Response: Immediate action taken to mitigate potential threats.
Automatic Remediation: Hands-free threat resolution without manual intervention.
Integration with Microsoft Defender: Seamlessly work alongside existing antivirus solutions.

What benefits should users consider?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces the need for large in-house security teams.
User Friendliness: Allows easy operation and management of cybersecurity tools.
Enhanced Security Posture: Adds an extra layer of protection to existing defenses.
Adaptability: Supports various deployment models for flexible implementation.
Endpoint Protection: Provides robust defense against evasive cyber threats.

Industries leverage Huntress Managed EDR to enhance security frameworks and integrate with existing security measures, like Microsoft Defender. Its deployment spans financial, healthcare, and SMB sectors, where the need for robust endpoint protection and threat-hunting capabilities is paramount. Organizations benefit from its flexible deployment options, adapting Huntress to their specific cybersecurity strategies.

Huntress

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting empowers businesses with advanced threat detection and incident response capabilities, leveraging proactive threat hunting and expert consultation to enhance cybersecurity posture across diverse environments.

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting provides a comprehensive cybersecurity solution that integrates well with Microsoft tools, enabling organizations to detect, explain, and manage threats efficiently. It uses the MITRE framework for reporting, enhancing detection strategies and regulatory compliance efforts, offering increased protection against nation-state and financially motivated cyber threats. With tools like KQL query capability, direct access to security analysts via the Ask an Expert button, and automation features, it enhances threat intel updates and saves significant man-hours for security teams.

What key features set Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting apart?

KQL Query Capability: Provides powerful data querying to identify potential threats.
Proactive Threat Hunting: Enables security teams to detect threats before they cause harm.
Ask an Expert Button: Allows direct chat with security analysts for expert insight.
Improved Detection Rates: Utilizes advanced algorithms to enhance threat detection accuracy.
Integration with MITRE Framework: Utilizes a robust framework for thorough threat identification.
Strategic Ecosystem Integration: Compatible with Microsoft tools for a cohesive cybersecurity strategy.

What benefits should organizations expect from using Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting?

Increased Threat Detection Precision: Provides reliable detection backed by Microsoft's extensive data.
Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Saves manpower through automation, allowing teams to focus on impactful tasks.
Regulatory Compliance Support: Assists in meeting compliance requirements through structured reporting.
Streamlined Incident Response: Reduces incident handling time with expert insights and integrated tools.

Industries employing Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting integrate it with Azure Sentinel and other cybersecurity tools to bolster threat response strategies. Entities benefit from advanced threat signals, enhancing protection against sophisticated cyber threats, particularly useful for sectors facing threats from nation-state and financially supported actors.

Microsoft

Huntress Managed EDR vs. Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting