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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Qualys Multi-Vector EDR 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (5th)
Qualys Multi-Vector EDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
71st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 10.3%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Multi-Vector EDR is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

John Rallo - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers excellent visibility into vulnerabilities and the attack surface itself
Attack surface reduction and limiting attack surface vectors are valuable features. It's helpful to isolate specific devices and get super granular with the features they offer. The visibility into the attack surface is good. It gets highly granular. I don't work on that side, but the people who do tell me they get more visibility.
reviewer1668453 - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides contextual alerts and risk ratings on findings
It's kind of difficult to quantify areas for improvement. In the larger picture, one challenge is that the NDR space is very crowded today. I can mention half a dozen names just off the top of my head. There are at least 12 to 20 different players. All of them are well-known brand names, and it's difficult to compare them. They all claim to be giving you the same network difference capability: catching malware, dealing with all the minor taxonomy of attack, all that. Still, it's very difficult to compare them side by side because they all do things a little differently, and they all have different presentations and output. We haven't deployed it, so I can't give you what we felt about it exactly. But in the larger perspective, the critical feature is really giving a clear separation between a low, high, and medium criticality. You need a rating that is really true to the actual attack. There's one other capability we are evaluating them for, and it's for custom alerts detection. A lot of these products are trying to profile the threats that are already out there in the industry. They're very well known and published. Today, there are targeted acts being played against organizations, so you have to be sensitive to how your firewalls, protocols, and your HTTP are all operating. You might have some fine-tuned threats that are targeting you, and you should be able to build custom defenses. They should have some openness in terms of how you specify your threats. You get a standard library of threats. On top of it, every organization builds its own.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I found most valuable in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it's out-of-the-box, which brings more value to the customer. The technical support for the product is also one of the best parts, because it's good, in terms of the product knowledge of the technical engineers."
"It integrates very well with all Windows workstations or other Microsoft Endpoint products. It also works quite well. So far, I have not had any issue that hasn't been sorted out. It doesn't use too many resources, so you don't have to install different things."
"The most important feature is the way it monitors the threats and blocks them. About 10 days ago, we were implementing SOC for a particular client. The SOC was not yet implemented, but they had Microsoft Defender. That organization was hit by some ransomware, but the hacker could not succeed. Because of the EDR, the hacker could not install the hacking tools. They were trying to do that, but Microsoft Defender completely blocked that. The hacker could log into the system, but they could not install anything."
"Its threat intelligence feature is beneficial. This solution smoothly integrates with SIEM."
"Defender for Endpoint has one dashboard with security-related information, vulnerability-related information, and basic recommendations from Microsoft, all in different tabs. That's helpful because if we want to fix only the recommended ones, we can go fix all of them..."
"It shows us the risky sign-ins, and if a user's password has been compromised."
"The performance of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has been a valuable feature."
"It captures data through machine learning, which is built-in on the back-end. It also provides built-in analytics and a threat intelligence feature. It is a one-stop solution that doesn't require an antivirus because it comes prebuilt into Windows 10."
"They can provide you very contextual alerts on if something bad is happening—coming into your network or going out of your network. As part of that, they gather a lot of threat intelligence and map your connections against that. The larger benefit is that they give you a risk rating on their findings."
 

Cons

"Lacks some additional integration."
"I would like the solution to be able to prevent unauthorized programs from installing and to block unauthorised URLs which is similar to web filtering product."
"I would like to have additional features such as DNS lookup, which would help for detecting malicious sites."
"The time it takes to restore the application could be improved. It has a lot of dependencies. It's not like the Microsoft security that comes with the OS. Updating through the command prompt, most of the time, it takes some time to download some of these dependencies."
"It's not quite a mature solution just yet. It needs more time to grow and develop."
"The application control feature requires improvement."
"The anti-ransomware features need to be improved upon."
"My main issue with the tool is that there are too many menus. This causes a steep learning curve for those without training or unfamiliar with Defender for Endpoint. From an end-user perspective, the solution is there on the machine and does its job; it works seamlessly. However, as a security professional dealing with it behind the scenes, the learning curve can be steep, but not too steep. Still, it has taken some of my analysts up to a month to get familiar with the product."
"My challenge is actually comparing offerings from different vendors across a threat spectrum that is very large. We are talking about millions of threats. How are you confident that Blue Hexagon is catching all one million of them and Palo Alto is doing the same thing? They all have their strengths. Within that, Blue Hexagon might cover 990,000 of them. Palo Alto might cover another 990,000. It's a bit difficult to compare them and say, "Oh, are they catching the same 990,000?" I don't know."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual license required."
"You don't need to worry about the renewal and purchase of antivirus products. It is bundled with Windows 10, so you don't need to worry about separately purchasing any antiviruses."
"The price for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is about three euros, which is considered reasonably priced."
"There is no licensing fee."
"I don't know the standalone costs. It is my understanding that the M365 E5 is $56 a month or something close to that pricing. That would be for the full suite. Just Defender might be $8 a month. I can't say for sure."
"Pricing can always be lower."
"Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs."
"Licenses depend upon what you are looking for and what kind of security do you want to implement. There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. When we used to buy Symantec, we used to spend on 100 licenses. We used to spend approximately $2,700 for those many licenses, and they came in packs. To add one more license, I had to buy a pack with a minimum of 10 licenses. I had to spend on nine extra licenses because I can't get a single license, whereas when we go for Microsoft, we can get as many licenses as we want. If I have 100 users today, and tomorrow, I have 90 users, I can release my 10 licenses next month. With any other software vendor, you buy licenses for one year, and you have to stick with that. If today you have 100 licenses, and tomorrow, you have 50, you have already paid for one year's license. You can't go back and tell them that I don't require these 50 licenses because I have lost my 50 users, but with Microsoft Defender, licensing is on a monthly basis. It gives you both options. You can go yearly and save on it, or you can go monthly. You will, again, save on it. It is very fair everywhere."
"It's difficult to state the setup cost. All the NDRs range anywhere between $500,000, plus or minus, to $2 million. There's a spread of pricing here, depending on who you are talking to. Obviously the major brand names want more money. They typically bundle it with their other offerings. With Cisco, for example, you don't just buy an NDR. So, typically it gets rolled into the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
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 s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
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 ...
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Also Known As

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Blue Hexagon
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Pacific Dental Services, Greenhill and Co, Heffernan Insurance Brokers
Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft and others in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). Updated: January 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.