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Malwarebytes Teams vs Microsoft Defender for Business comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

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

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Malwarebytes Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Malwarebytes Teams is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 1.4%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.9%
Microsoft Defender for Business1.4%
Malwarebytes Teams1.6%
Other93.1%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
reviewer2594097 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at a wholesaler/distributor with 11-50 employees
Exceptional malware protection with regular updates and behavior-based detection
There are no built-in backups or integrated backup options, which could be an opportunity. The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it. Other customers have mentioned issues with false positives. It lacks enterprise-level management and more enterprise functionality. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are much more enterprise-grade solutions. Malwarebytes has limited integration with cybersecurity tools and lacks enterprise integrations because it is not an enterprise product.
Paritosh Jani - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate VP (Managed Information Technology Services) at Dev Information Tech Pvt Ltd
Has delivered automated threat response and streamlined integration with advanced tools
The best features of Microsoft Defender for Business include it coming as an XDR solution which provides automated investigations, remediations, and endpoint detection and response. Moreover, it can be tightly integrated with vulnerability management or detecting vulnerabilities and pushing them to the SIEM solution. I utilize the advanced threat hunting feature of Microsoft Defender for Business and find it helpful; it's good and improving with every update. Microsoft Defender for Business integrates effectively with the Microsoft ecosystem as with Azure Sentinel, and it has a two-way natural integration. Apart from that, it also integrates with industry SIEM solutions such as Splunk.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use it for malicious connections from malicious websites, to identify payloads that might be inside the traffic, to identify malicious processes or bugs that are running on the network, and any activities that tend to lead to data infiltration."
"Stability-wise, it is good; I did not hear about any issues in terms of stability, and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be trusted completely."
"Palo Alto is the core of the security infrastructure in the environment."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"Traps has drastically reduced our endpoint attack surface via advanced detection capabilities, sandboxing of never before seen programs, and by drastically limiting where executables can launch in the first place."
"Traps is quite a stable product. Once it was properly deployed and configured, you have nothing to be worried about."
"I recommend this solution to others because it is easy to manage, reliable, and overall good to use."
"I like that the product has behavior-based detection which offers many benefits over signature-based detection."
"Being able to cloud manage it from just a cloud login is valuable. We can get to it from anywhere, which is really helpful. The fact that we can remediate from the cloud console is one of our favorite features."
"This solution helps us by providing central management of anti-malware and anti-exploit functionality."
"The behavior-based detection is very nice, and it combats zero-day threats by looking for anomalous behaviors."
"So far, the solution has done a good job of protecting us from malicious items, such as ransomware, among other things."
"The solution is very good at scanning; it's a good product, it does the job, it offers good protection, and I haven't come across any issues so far which I need to escalate."
"The solution was successfully deployed and so far has been able to stop all ransomware attacks, which has been extremely beneficial to the organization."
"It is a stable solution."
"Being able to carry out a full scan on your system."
"I haven't had any problems with the tool's stability."
"I recommend Microsoft Defender for Business to startup organizations looking for a plug-and-play solution."
"I rate Microsoft Defender for Business a 10 out of 10."
"I would recommend Microsoft Defender for Business to others, rating it as ten out of ten."
"The solution is effective, continuously improving, and highly regarded, especially with Microsoft's leadership in the industry."
"Because Microsoft Defender for Business is a native solution to Microsoft 365, it has contributed to my organization's proactive defense strategies by saving time on integration."
"Microsoft Defender for Business is good for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers solid security flexibility and integration with tools like Microsoft Lighthouse and some other software. It takes some of the features of Defender for Endpoint EDR and provides those services for small and medium-sized business environments."
"Microsoft Defender for Business works well with the Microsoft Azure Security ecosystem, including Defender for Endpoint and Office 365 Cloud."
 

Cons

"There are some third-party solutions that are difficult to integrate with, which is something that can be improved."
"I recommend adding a data loss prevention (DLP) solution to Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of DLP policies alongside antivirus policies via a single agent and console, making it more competitive as other OEMs often offer DLP solutions as part of their antivirus products."
"It would be better if they could educate the customers more. Some sort of seminars and roadshows will help educate the customers and show what the product can do. The price could be better. It would also help if they had a team for deployment and support."
"They have the worst support, as a company, that I have ever worked with, as they are difficult to get a hold of and keep on the phone. They don't know what they are talking about when you get them on the phone. They don't like to respond to messages when you send them to them. They like to "research problems" for weeks on end, then pass you off to somebody else."
"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"Limited remote connection."
"It's more focused on network communication. If a customer wants to increase the level of protection and start working with documents, it's impossible to integrate these features into the system. It's more of a communication-oriented system than a content security-oriented system."
"A better pricing plan would make this product more competitive."
"Malwarebytes can improve its network database. Malwarebytes can scan the files and registry. It can scan the system with a light agent. It will not impact the performance of your PC. You can do the full scan and database scan using the EDR, and the RAM and CPU consumption will not increase."
"Malwarebytes is too simplistic. From a SOC IR perspective, it doesn't give you very much data around it. It doesn't tie things or provide SHA-1 and SHA-256 detection information, which makes it hard to do an additional investigation."
"Malwarebytes should improve its mobile compatibility."
"The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it."
"The stability and performance of the solution are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."
"The product's stability needs improvement."
"There hasn't been an ROI because we haven't had an event that would cause this software to do something. Therefore, at this point, it has just been a cost to us because we haven't gotten anything out of it."
"They could come up with better reporting capabilities."
"Talking with the tool's technician about any problem is very complicated."
"The solution's AI is notorious for false positives, and the time you have to spend training it is ridiculous."
"The technical support from Microsoft is very poor. I would rate it a one, as their technical staff are very junior and take a long time to respond to simple questions."
"If I need logs and don't have local storage bundled with Defender, I need to add workspace and log analytics, which is costly for storing logs of 2 GB, 5 GB, 10 GB."
"The threat detection capabilities require significant customization for multistage threat detection."
"The security could always be improved."
"I have an open case for close to two months with no responses or updates, except for an email response, and I've made four or five phone calls regarding the Microsoft Interconnect for AD and cloud tenant."
"We faced some issues while running some applications on Mac."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. I have customers that have voiced that the solution is good for the value but if I want to sell more of the solution the price reduction would help."
"In terms of the cost Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very expensive because we are a Mexican company and when you translate dollars to pesos the cost is very high. The solution is very expensive for Mexican companies. I understand that they have international prices, but I do not think it offsets the price enough for many companies in countries, such as Mexico. The amount it is reduced is not a massive percentage."
"Very costly product."
"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."
"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"The price of Malwarebytes is in the middle range compared to other vendors."
"The cost may be something in the ballpark of $20-25 a year per computer."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the product's pricing a seven."
"Yearly, it is around $50 per client."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"Its cost is around $60 a machine. The cost of the total solution for 250 people is about $8,500 a year. If we add EDR to it, it will bring that cost up to about $15,000. The cost for Carbon Black is about $25,000, which is $10,000 more, but you get all AI functions with it."
"The platform pricing is competitive with other antivirus products."
"It is expensive."
"It has to get more competitive because we are starting to see some of the competitors providing better pricing, and some of it, of course, is to gain market share. The Defender product pricing is probably a little higher than the competitors."
"Defender for Business is included by default with an Office 365 premium subscription."
"The tool's cost has been a little high, but I do not think it was terrible."
"Since we're a nonprofit, we get pretty good discounts on the tool."
"The tool is cheap, while some other solutions are more expensive. I remember the tool cost about five euros for a workstation or for a user on a monthly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. ...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Malwarebytes?
I really hate the automatic rebilling without officially confirming it with me. It's an annoyance and they should at ...
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes?
It takes up too much space when it's trying to run in the background.
What is your primary use case for Malwarebytes?
My primary use case is that it's protecting me against malware.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?
Our thoughts on the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Business are that we wish it could be better. If the pricing w...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?
I see room for improvement in Microsoft Defender for Business, particularly regarding the consolidation of all securi...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Knutson Construction
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Malwarebytes Teams vs. Microsoft Defender for Business and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.