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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Microsoft Defender for Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.5
Microsoft Defender boosts productivity and security, integrating seamlessly with Office tools for significant budget savings despite ROI challenges.
Sentiment score
5.6
Determining ROI from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is challenging due to package inclusion and unclear financial benefits.
Using Microsoft Defender for Business results in cost reductions as it consolidates various features under one product, saving around 20% to 30% of the budget.
It is pretty good because it offers various features such as Exchange, OfficeSuite, OneDrive, and SharePoint.
The value I see in Microsoft Defender for Business is in its ability to track and respond to application usage and security threats through its CASB and automation features, which are cost-beneficial.
As a Microsoft partner, we receive significant discounts, making the solution affordable for us.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.2
Users have mixed reviews of Microsoft Defender's support, noting contact difficulties and inconsistent technical assistance despite good onboarding.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender's customer service receives mixed reviews, highlighting inconsistent support and varying effectiveness in technical assistance.
It is rated ten out of ten for its quality and assistance.
The onboarding support is exceptional, ensuring seamless integration and implementation.
Faster support is needed for endpoint security solutions.
They are sometimes responsive, however, often issues cannot be reproduced on their end, making it challenging.
The support we receive from Microsoft is declining, and for example, after taking advanced support, we have not received satisfactory answers.
My team raised multiple support tickets for the product, and we were able to get responses from Microsoft support team.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Microsoft Defender for Business is scalable and effective across diverse environments, though special configurations might impact growth speed.
Sentiment score
8.4
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is praised for its high scalability and seamless integration, receiving consistently high user ratings.
The cloud-based nature of the solution ensures high scalability.
The scalability of Microsoft Defender for Business is rated as ten, indicating it is very scalable.
In terms of scalability, I would rate Microsoft Defender for Business a ten.
It is scalable; I evaluated the product and decided to use Defender on over 700 of our company servers.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Defender for Business is stable and reliable, with minimal crashes, but some report occasional bugs impacting stability.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender is rated highly stable with 99% availability, despite minor portal, compatibility, logging, and memory issues.
No customer complaints about its functionality or reliability.
Although it generally works, there are occasional issues and errors that sometimes require a complete system format to rectify.
I would rate the stability of Microsoft Defender for Business with a three out of ten, where one is very bad.
There are compatibility issues occasionally arising with false positives when other security tools are not whitelisted in Microsoft Defender.
It is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU.
I would rate the overall stability as an eight.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Business needs better reporting, integration, simplified interface, and enhanced features to address various limitations and concerns.
Microsoft Defender needs improvements in accuracy, customization, integration, resource efficiency, macOS support, user-friendliness, and affordability.
Microsoft should provide batch management solutions with the application, integrating pass management with roles.
Features related to Advanced Persistent Threat detection vectors and cyber kill chain integrations are not available out-of-the-box.
There can be improvements in the user interface to make it more intuitive.
This scoring should be for specific industries as well. If I belong to the healthcare industry using Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, it should provide me with a risk score and show how I fare against the risk score of my industry.
A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update.
The product is not stable; it often uses excessive memory and CPU, which makes it slow.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Business offers competitive pricing with enterprise value, though some users find costs high compared to competitors.
Microsoft Defender offers varying pricing; complex licensing may incur additional costs, but security benefits can justify the investment.
Single-year pricing remains good.
The pricing is quite affordable at the enterprise level with no extra expenses noted.
The package with Business Premium is good for what you get for the price.
Overall, every organization wishes for cheaper options, but we look at the security side as well, so we are good for now.
For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
The pricing is reasonable, and it's included in the whole Microsoft E5 bundle, so it's all-inclusive.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Business integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, offering comprehensive security, scalability, and user-friendly features for effective threat management.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management excels in integration, compliance, risk prioritization, and real-time assessments, enhancing security across diverse environments.
The threat detection capabilities are robust, with a dedicated research team and a continuously updated threat feed.
Its vulnerability management is regarded as one of the best in the industry.
The most effective features of Microsoft Defender for Business include its threat detection and response capabilities in managing vulnerabilities and ransomware attacks.
The main advantage of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is that it can locate and prevent most threats even when the endpoints are not connected to the corporate network, as long as the internet is available.
The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources.
The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (23rd)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (12th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 3.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced threat protection secures diverse workloads with cost-effective deployment
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. A default storage of 5 GB for logs should be included with Defender. There are limitations in whitelisting folders and files, and the whitelisting feature for Defender threat protection was deprecated. A straightforward feature for this should be added.
NaySan @ Suraj Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides actionable vulnerability insights and recommendations with notable efficiency
They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours. Overall, everything is good with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, but the portal refresh rate can take up to seven days in some cases and three or four days in others to reflect changes.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Business?
A few things are valuable. One is the alerting we see when any kind of intrusion is happening, any kind of malware is being deployed across the endpoints, or any kind of suspicious activity is goin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?
Microsoft Defender for Business offers the best pricing option in the market and is very cost-effective.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?
The areas where Microsoft Defender for Business could improve include the support, installation process, and wiki. I should be able to find solutions to issues quickly without having to delve too d...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I have not thought about improvements for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as of now, but this is typically an operational maintenance process. The operational maintenance process refers...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Microsoft Defender for Business and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.