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IRONSCALES 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
Implementing IRONSCALES led to cost savings, improved cybersecurity, and enhanced security awareness with immediate efficiency and threat detection benefits.
Sentiment score
4.5
Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective and efficient, offering incident prevention and resolution without complex hardware setups.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.0
IRONSCALES and its third-party resellers are praised for their quick, efficient issue resolution, excellent support, and high customer ratings.
Sentiment score
7.4
Opinions on Microsoft Defender for Identity support vary, highlighting responsiveness, but issues include delays, contact challenges, and false positives.
I would rate their technical support as very good, as they respond promptly when my team opens a ticket.
The quality of support is very good, but troubleshooting can take time due to complex setups and the need to provide many logs.
Generally, the support is more effective than other providers like Oracle.
Technical support from Microsoft rates an eight on a scale of 1 to 10 for response time.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
IRONSCALES is cloud-based, easily scalable for up to thousands of users, integrates with Office 365, and requires minimal maintenance.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Defender for Identity efficiently integrates and scales globally, supporting diverse organizational needs within Microsoft’s ecosystem effectively.
In a Microsoft-centric organization, especially with Azure infrastructure and Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
IRONSCALES is highly stable and reliable, featuring minimal downtime, easy maintenance, and consistent uptime, ensuring smooth performance.
Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Defender for Identity is highly reliable, with minimal incidents, seamless operation, and consistent ratings between seven and nine.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is quite robust and built on Azure hyperscale infrastructure, with a 99% availability.
We do not see any issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Identity.
Having recently started using it, reliability is affirmed, but manual investigation is often performed to verify if alerts identified by auto-remediation are accurate.
 

Room For Improvement

IRONSCALES needs improved Google Suite integration, better UI, enhanced training and reporting, refined algorithms, and more comprehensive feature bundling.
Microsoft Defender for Identity users seek improved cloud integration, user-friendly features, better support, and streamlined processes for enhanced threat management.
Though this isn't problematic for our users, the content could be updated more frequently.
If Microsoft could develop a feature that indicates when impossible travel is caused by VPN connections, it would prevent unnecessary password resets and session disruptions, especially for VIP users in organizations.
One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform.
Reducing false positives is something we've been working on with Microsoft.
 

Setup Cost

IRONSCALES pricing is considered high but cost-effective and valuable, offering significant security benefits and savings for varying budgets.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective with E5 licenses despite complex pricing and competitive against other security solutions.
While I don't specifically oversee the pricing details, I understand that IRONSCALES is in the range of similar solutions while offering better results.
If they can reduce the costs, organizations will be happy, and it will compensate for using the Azure environment, which is more expensive on the infrastructure as a service side.
the Microsoft Defender Suite is quite expensive, especially when integrated into Sentinel.
Ensuring a fair price according to market standards.
 

Valuable Features

IRONSCALES offers scalable AI-driven phishing detection, automated response, and integration with Microsoft 365, enhancing email security and user experience.
Microsoft Defender for Identity integrates with Azure to offer comprehensive threat detection, identity protection, and advanced real-time security insights.
IRONSCALES excels at analyzing the intention, not just the content itself, but the sender's attempt to gain user attention.
We receive an advance report of risky users, allowing us to take preemptive action before an attack causes damage to organization details.
Based on the detection of incidents, we can prevent issues, and if there are any identity-related alerts, they are prevented through a conditional access policy.
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.
 

Categories and Ranking

IRONSCALES
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
18th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (17th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (7th)
Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of IRONSCALES is 2.3%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 6.4%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Identity6.4%
IRONSCALES2.3%
Other91.3%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Hemeshen Govender - PeerSpot reviewer
Applies AI automation to clearly identify and stop a lot of phishing emails
The solution captures a bit more of the unknown, quantifies it, and applies intelligence to it to pick out and stop a lot of phishing emails that come through. The solution improved our response to phishing attempts. IRONSCALES has a virtual assistant and some AI intelligence that's applied to it. That was the main differentiator between IRONSCALES and Microsoft. The solution's AI automation clearly identifies phishing emails and gives you an overall indication of why it found the mail to be malicious. It does the whole analysis for you to see why the email was deemed a phishing email. The solution's response time is better than that of our previous tool. The solution's user interface is pretty straightforward and user-friendly.
Peter Arabomen - PeerSpot reviewer
Has supported hybrid identity management while integrating well with cloud directory services
The only challenge I have with Microsoft Defender for Identity is the latency. I may not put that entirely on Microsoft, because latency could be network related. At times when trying to authenticate, the prompt is delayed. We tried implementing passwordless authentication, especially for on-premises workloads, but we haven't been able to achieve that. Passwordless authentication is part of the identity functionalities, particularly when it comes to enforcing passwordless for on-premises workloads. In terms of improvements, you can't create OUs on Azure AD. Regarding giving users privileges on what they can do across different OUs, I haven't seen that feature on Microsoft Defender for Identity. Microsoft Defender for Identity needs to be able to plug into third-party applications that are not Microsoft. For instance, with a human resource application used to manage users and leave requests, when staff leaves the organization, they are first exited from that application before AD. Integration between Azure AD and third-party applications would allow automatic syncing when removing staff. The initial setup of Microsoft Defender for Identity is not hard. However, setup is one thing, and getting value from the application end-to-end is another. It can be set up and running from the first day but not functioning optimally. Initially, when we did the setup, it wasn't optimal. Over time, with continuous improvement, which we're still doing, we've gotten to a comfortable level, but there's still room for improvement.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
5%
University
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IRONSCALES?
The solution captures a bit more of the unknown, quantifies it, and applies intelligence to it to pick out and stop a lot of phishing emails that come through.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IRONSCALES?
While I don't specifically oversee the pricing details, I understand that IRONSCALES is in the range of similar solutions while offering better results.
What needs improvement with IRONSCALES?
There are areas that could be improved with this product. Regarding the Spanish language awareness training, while they are producing good content, it appears to be initially produced in English an...
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?
The only challenge I have with Microsoft Defender for Identity is the latency. I may not put that entirely on Microsoft, because latency could be network related. At times when trying to authentica...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I've used Microsoft Defender for Identity primarily for provisioning users on Azure AD and Microsoft authentication. For hybrid scenarios, I integrate on-premises AD to Azure AD. We use AD Connect ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Allegheny Millwork, Ayrshire College, Nium, Orris, Paramount School District, Pres Les, PRT Staffing, Recovery Unplugged, Telit, WebHelp
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 IRONSCALES vs. Microsoft Defender for Identity and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.