We performed a comparison between Microsoft 365 Defender and Microsoft Defender for Cloud based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: 365 Defender has a slight edge over Defender for Cloud in this comparison since it is the more user-friendly solution. Defender for Cloud does come out on top in the pricing and ROI categories, however.
"The EDR and the way it automatically responds to ransomware and other attacks are valuable features."
"I like that it's fully integrated with Windows, Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, and Outlook. It is better than other antivirus solutions because it's fully integrated with all Microsoft products. It's easy to integrate them and onboard all Windows devices from SCCM."
"The most valuable feature of all is the full integration with the rest of the software in the operating system and Office 365, as well as Microsoft SCCM. It is quite easy for us to work with the whole instance of Microsoft products. This integration improves the benefits of the whole suite of products."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is simple to upgrade."
"The most valuable feature depends on the scenario. For compliance, I like Microsoft Purview Information Protection and Data Loss Prevention. Sentinel is the most helpful feature for security. 365 Defender helps us prioritize threats across an enterprise. It's a crucial feature for the managed services team."
"It gives a lot of flexibility in terms of configuration and customization as per the business requirements."
"The visibility into threats is also very impressive because Microsoft helps you predict things and provides analytics to help you really improve your security. And all of this technology works across the domain, so it is pretty helpful in terms of threat analytics."
"We can automate routine tasks and write scripts to carry out difficult tasks, which makes things easier for us."
"Technical support is helpful."
"The solution is very easy to deploy."
"The first valuable feature was the fact that it gave us a list of everything that users were surfing on the web. Having the list, we could make decisions about those sites."
"It works seamlessly on the Azure platform because it's a Microsoft app. Its setup is similar, so if you already have a Microsoft account, it just flows into it."
"When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team."
"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution."
"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."
"It's got a lot of great features."
"The Defender agent itself is more compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11. Other than these two lines, there are so many compatibility issues. Security is not only about Microsoft. The core technical aspects of it are quite good, but it would be good if they can better support non-Microsoft solutions in terms of putting the agents directly into VMware and other virtualization solutions. There should be more emphasis on RHEL and other operating systems that we use, other than Windows, in the server category."
"The support from Microsoft could improve. There are times I have to wait for a response from a qualified specialist."
"Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected."
"Microsoft tends to provide too many features, which makes the solution prone to bugs."
"There should be better information for experts on features in the solution. What I see when reading about features in Microsoft 365 Defender is that it is always general information. If Microsoft could go deeper into details for the experts about how to use the tools, usage of it would be more familiar and it would be easier to use."
"At times, there may be delays in the execution of certain actions and their effects."
"The user interface of Microsoft 365 Defender could improve. They could make it simpler."
"Intrusion detection and prevention would be great to have with 365 Defender."
"Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts."
"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."
"Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than CrowdStrike, which my current company uses. Defender for Cloud has two or three processes running simultaneously that consume memory and processor time. I had the chance to compare that with CrowdStrike a few days ago, which was significantly less. It would be nice if Defender were a little lighter. It's a relatively large installation that consumes more resources than competitors do."
"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."
"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."
"The product must improve its UI."
"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."
"Sometimes, it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or certain kinds of products. That's not an issue directly with the product, though."
Microsoft 365 Defender is ranked 1st in Microsoft Security Suite with 37 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 2nd in Microsoft Security Suite with 22 reviews. Microsoft 365 Defender is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Microsoft 365 Defender writes "Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides good recommendations and makes policy administration easy". Microsoft 365 Defender is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager, Microsoft Sentinel, Trend Micro XDR and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, whereas Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Sentinel, Wiz and Trend Micro Cloud One . See our Microsoft 365 Defender vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.
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We monitor all Microsoft Security Suite reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
