Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 29, 2023

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 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.

  • Ease of Deployment: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint’s setup is easy with guides, and no on-prem infrastructure. Microsoft Defender for Cloud’s setup is straightforward, with proper roles, but may have dashboard integration issues.
  • Features: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers holistic integration with other Defender products, control of corporate versus personal profiles, and centralized policy administration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides intuitive policy administration, built-in policies, and multi-cloud support with good network technology maps.
  • Pricing: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included in the M365/E5 licenses, with subsidized options for direct licensing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has no extra cost for bundled features.
  • Service and Support: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint’s technical support is fast and responsive, with good levels of escalation. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has excellent support through enterprise agreements and a dedicated engineering team.
  • ROI: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has less overhead and increased visibility, streamlining security posture management. Microsoft Defender for Cloud’s ROI is reportedly 200% due to seamless integration and risk prevention.

Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes out ahead of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. While both products have comprehensive features, Microsoft Defender for Cloud’s dashboards may not integrate easily with other enterprise dashboards.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Report (Updated: September 2023).
745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand.""Microsoft Defender has a lot of features including regulatory compliance and attaching workbooks but the most valuable is the recommendations it provides for each and every resource when we open Microsoft Defender.""It's got a lot of great features.""Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats.""DSPM is the most valuable feature.""Technical support is helpful.""The security policy is the most valuable feature for us. We can go into the environment settings and attach any globally recognized framework like ISO or any benchmark.""Threat protection is comprehensive and simple."

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"The solution's threat protection is mostly AI and machine-learning based. That is the most important feature of the product. It also offers centralized management so I can remotely manage devices.""We can run the virus scan across our entire environment.""Endpoint's most valuable feature is deep analysis.""It's great for investigating what's happening on a machine. They show a whole bunch of machine timeline events that are related to a security incident. They have quite good details on the things related to threat and vulnerability management, such as any weakness that has been disclosed publicly, assets that are exposed, and if there is an exploit active in the wild for that vulnerability. It can provide you with all such information, which is cool.""Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a robust platform.""Defender provides useful alerts and groups them. It sends an alert to your portal if it detects any malicious activity, and you can group multiple alerts to form an incident.""The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its ability to bring together all the data, providing more information than just antivirus hits.""We found that because the endpoint devices are based on Microsoft Windows devices and Windows Defender is integrated with the foundation and the core layer, it makes it more integrated and more agile in terms of responding to any security threats or changes or development"

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Cons
"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting.""For Kubernetes, I was using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). To see that whatever is getting deployed into AKS goes through the correct checks and balances in terms of affinities and other similar aspects and follows all the policies, we had to use a product called Stackrox. At a granular level, the built-in policies were good for Kubernetes, but to protect our containers from a coding point of view, we had to use a few other products. For example, from a programming point of view, we were using Checkmarx for static code analysis. For CIS compliance, there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, we had to use other plugins to see that the CIS benchmarks are compliant. There are CIS benchmarks for Kubernetes on AWS and GCP, but there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, Azure Security Center fell short from the regulatory compliance point of view, and we had to use one more product. We ended up with two different dashboards. We had Azure Security Center, and we had Stackrox that had its own dashboard. The operations team and the security team had to look at two dashboards, and they couldn't get an integrated piece. That's a drawback of Azure Security Center. Azure Security Center should provide APIs so that we can integrate its dashboard within other enterprise dashboards, such as the PowerBI dashboard. We couldn't get through these aspects, and we ended up giving Reader security permission to too many people, which was okay to some extent, but when we had to administer the users for the Stackrox portal and Azure Security Center, it became painful.""I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting.""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.""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.""From my own perspective, they just need a product that is tailored to micro-segmentation so I can configure rules for multiple systems at once and manage it.""After getting a recommendation, it takes time for the solution to refresh properly to show that the problem has been eliminated.""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."

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"Reporting could be improved. I would like to see how many security incidents occurred in the last six months, how many devices were highly exposed to security risks, and how many devices were actually compromised.""The time to generate certain alerts on our dashboard can take between 45 minutes to an hour, and I am unsure of the factors that influence this duration.""Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should include better automation that will make it faster to detect the latest threats happening across the world.""There are some areas in the proactive threats that are just overwhelming the SOC, so we've had to turn those off until we can figure out how to filter out the false positives.""A single dashboard would be a significant improvement.""I miss having an executive dashboard or a simple view for viewing things. Everything is extensive in this solution. Everything is configurable and manageable, but the environment of Microsoft 365 has about 13 administrative dashboards, and in each of the dashboards, there are a gazillion things to set up. It is good for a large enterprise, but for a 200-seat client, you need to see 5% of that.""We would like to see more tools for managing on-premises security... Sometimes, we have the tools, like Defender, to manage security in the cloud, but because we are so focused on the cloud, we forget the fact that we need to be sure about the security of the on-premises environment, specifically Active Directory.""Phishing and Malware detection could be better."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It is bundled with our enterprise subscription, which makes it easy to go for it. It is available by default, and there is no extra cost for using the standard features."
  • "Azure Defender is definitely pricey, but their competitors cost about the same. For example, a Palo Alto solution is the same price per endpoint, but the ground strikes cost a bit more than Azure Defender. Still, it's pricey for a company like ours. Maybe well-established organizations can afford it, but it might be too costly for a startup."
  • "Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."
  • "The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
  • "Pricing depends on your workload size, but it is very cheap. If you're talking about virtual machines, it is $5 or something for each machine, which is minimal. If you go for some agent-based solution for every virtual machine, then you need to pay the same thing or more than that. For an on-premises solution like this, we were paying around $30 to $50 based on size. With Defender, Microsoft doesn't bother about the size. You pay based on the number of machines. So, if you have 10 virtual machines, and 10 virtual machines are being monitored, you are paying based on that rather than the size of the virtual machine. Thus, you are paying for the number of units rather than paying for the size of your units."
  • "The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing. If you have Cloud for Key Vault, the pricing is different than it is for storage. Every type has its own pricing list and rules."
  • "They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."
  • "Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We pay a yearly license for Microsoft Defender. We also have a support contract with them."
  • "The solution is free with Windows."
  • "You do not need to pay any additional costs for antivirus and anti-malware solutions for endpoint protection."
  • "The solutions price could be cheaper."
  • "Microsoft has different plans for buying this product. The price depends on the configuration of the full set of products that you buy and on the licensing program in your contract."
  • "Licensing models of Microsoft are renowned for being complex. We just purchased the whole E5 stack. With E5 licenses for users, we get access to a bunch of features that are not just related to security. I would rate them a three out of five in terms of pricing."
  • "This solution is part of an enterprise license we have."
  • "Compared to ESET, the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is on the higher side."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a… more »
    Top Answer:My personal experience with Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing involves considerations like the size of the organization and specific requirements. It's crucial to assess these factors for accurate… more »
    Top Answer:Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-based… more »
    Top Answer:We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security… more »
    Top Answer:The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature but… more »
    Ranking
    1st
    Views
    9,380
    Comparisons
    6,770
    Reviews
    22
    Average Words per Review
    1,169
    Rating
    8.0
    6th
    Views
    2,676
    Comparisons
    2,372
    Reviews
    93
    Average Words per Review
    851
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
    Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

    The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for organizations. It offers real-time protection against various types of cyber threats, including malware, viruses, ransomware, and phishing attacks.

    With its powerful machine-learning capabilities, it can detect and block sophisticated attacks before they can cause any harm. The solution also includes endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities, allowing organizations to quickly investigate and respond to security incidents. It provides detailed insights into the attack timeline, enabling security teams to understand the scope and impact of an incident.

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint also offers proactive threat hunting, allowing organizations to proactively search for and identify potential threats within their network. It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft security solutions, such as Microsoft Defender XDR, to provide a unified and holistic security approach. With its centralized management console, organizations can easily deploy, configure, and monitor the security solution across their entire network.

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a robust and scalable security solution that helps organizations protect their endpoints and data from evolving cyber threats.

    Offer
    Learn more about Microsoft Defender for Cloud
    Learn more about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
    Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Agriculture10%
    Recruiting/Hr Firm10%
    Consumer Goods Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Energy/Utilities Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Government8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise62%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise66%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise47%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 1st in Microsoft Security Suite with 22 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 6th in Microsoft Security Suite with 92 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides good recommendations and makes policy administration easy". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "You can access all your security data and telemetry from a single pane of glass". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with Microsoft Defender XDR, AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Sentinel and Azure Firewall, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Intercept X Endpoint, Symantec Endpoint Security, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.

    See our list of best Microsoft Security Suite vendors.

    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.