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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
7.9
Implementing IRONSCALES led to cost savings, improved cybersecurity, and enhanced security awareness with immediate efficiency and threat detection benefits.
Sentiment score
5.0
Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective and efficient, offering incident prevention and resolution without complex hardware setups.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.8
IRONSCALES and its third-party resellers are praised for their quick, efficient issue resolution, excellent support, and high customer ratings.
Sentiment score
7.5
Opinions on Microsoft Defender for Identity support vary, highlighting responsiveness, but issues include delays, contact challenges, and false positives.
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.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
IRONSCALES is cloud-based, easily scalable for up to thousands of users, integrates with Office 365, and requires minimal maintenance.
Sentiment score
7.9
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
8.9
IRONSCALES is highly stable and reliable, featuring minimal downtime, easy maintenance, and consistent uptime, ensuring smooth performance.
Sentiment score
7.2
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.
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.
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.
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 most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Identity include its automatic remedies, possibilities for avoiding incidents, the privilege manager, and the generation of logs that facilitate a safer environment.
 

Categories and Ranking

IRONSCALES
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
19th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (18th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (8th)
Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of IRONSCALES is 2.4%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 6.7%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration within the ecosystem enhances collaboration and automates functionalities
The integration into the Microsoft Defender ecosystem is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Identity. It fits very nicely with all the other Defender tools, allowing for excellent collaboration among them. It also fits seamlessly into Microsoft Sentinel SIEM. Furthermore, Microsoft security solutions can save time as they allow the automation of numerous functionalities, and the reporting inside the Microsoft ecosystem is commendable.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
6%
Construction Company
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The product is available as a middle-priced tool. I think it is not the cheapest solution. There are other solutions apart from IRONSCALES that are more expensive, while some are a little bit more ...
What needs improvement with IRONSCALES?
I think maybe on the side of the awareness training, the tool can improve a little more information and have some other languages since even though English is good, Spanish is not so good. The tool...
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?
Microsoft can improve Microsoft Defender for Identity by ensuring that installation prerequisites are included in the setup process. Installing the solution presents challenges as numerous logs and...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
My personal use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity is that it is amazing. It provides very good and deep analytics about whatever is happening in the on-premises Active Directory. The sensors...
 

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: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.