Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Tanium comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 16, 2025

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 Protection Platform (EPP)
2nd
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
Tanium
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
21st
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (3rd), Vulnerability Management (20th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 8.7%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tanium is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint8.7%
Tanium2.2%
Other89.1%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Q&A Highlights

 

Featured Reviews

Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.
VK
Infra Vulnarability Manager at Rezilyens
Immediate results in patching promptly address vulnerabilities
When working with Tanium, there are some older devices that haven't been patched for a long time, and certain patches are not included in Tanium. I have to search outside to download patches, create bundles, and then perform the task. It would be easier if Tanium provided the patches directly. Some other brands provide the patch with a direct download link, which facilitates the process. Also, I feel that if there were more detailed documents and remediations readily available online for troubleshooting, especially more up-to-date information, it would be beneficial. Currently, some resources online are very out-of-date.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"File protection is the most valuable feature. Antivirus security on the Level OS, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Guard for 2019."
"Provides good vulnerability assessment."
"Technical support is good."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has helped free up my SOC team to work on other projects and tasks, and the automated reporting and dashboarding has saved them a lot of time, amounting to several man-hours."
"The solution has good performance, I have not seen a problem."
"The installation is straightforward."
"In terms of the installation, ease of use, and user interface, Defender has been great so far."
"The fact that it's from Microsoft, you don't have many false positives, unlike products from other vendors might have."
"When I push a quick update, it's done right away, and I can rescan immediately to confirm completion within minutes."
"Threat hunting is a very good feature on Tanium. We have just started using it and have not used it extensively."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the consolidation of all historical data on device endpoints, security drivers, firmware, and Software version gaps."
"The security features are very valuable."
"The product is granular and can build complex roles compared to other EDR vendors."
"The solution is scalable and helps to understand how infrastructure works. It helps to improve the health of the organization."
"Tanium is a very good product and I would rate it eight or nine out of ten."
"The solution's technical support is very responsive."
 

Cons

"We were not happy that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as a Microsoft product, along with Intune to manage devices, charges this much and still does not provide the information that we are looking for."
"The interface isn't necessarily intuitive to a nontechnical person. You can get stuck in the little endpoint security portal. Sometimes, if you uninstall a competitive product, the end user doesn't always know if it's running or if they're protected even though it's silently running. There could be a notification, widget, or something that's resident on the screen for at least a bit, especially if you're doing remote support. You want to talk them through it, but sometimes, we're not allowed to look at the PCs we support."
"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."
"We encountered some issues when we were trying to enable automatic updates from our group policy."
"The documentation could be better. When they update their manuals, sometimes they refer to products by their old names, so it is a little confusing. For example, the documentation might still say "Advanced Threat Protection" instead of Defender for Endpoint."
"It needs to improve the cybersecurity for lateral movements. For example, when a hacker tries to enter a machine, they try to get the password by doing a lateral movement."
"More hooks and more reporting would be beneficial. More proactive reporting would be ideal."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration."
"There are some bugs in the product. The tool needs to improve in the area of reporting."
"When working with Tanium, there are some older devices that haven't been patched for a long time, and certain patches are not included in Tanium."
"The performance could improve in future releases. We have had performance issues in specialized web environments, but overall I think the problems are less than 2% of the computer systems being used."
"I would like to have more integrations and custom plugins to input. Integration is always a big deal in a lot of different environments."
"Tanium’s scalability could be improved."
"It is not really additional functions, or the features that are needed, rather the complexity would be reduced based on the number of modules required to put together a comprehensive operational security and risk compliance model."
"When working with Tanium, there are some older devices that haven't been patched for a long time, and certain patches are not included in Tanium. I have to search outside to download patches, create bundles, and then perform the task."
"The solution lacks mobility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is high for E5 licenses, but if we go with the E3 license, most of the features are not covered."
"It is an expensive solution. It would be nice if it could be included with the Microsoft Office package."
"When compared with other vendors, the pricing is very high."
"It is built into Windows 10. If our clients are using Microsoft Defender, the cost goes away for them."
"For me, the pricing is very good, but for management it's very expensive. Other solutions are less expensive. But when I present all the information and all the reports they say, "Well, it's expensive, but the cost-benefit is very good.""
"The price was a problem for me three years ago, but they improved their E3, E5, and a la carte licensing. In other words, you have to get all of E5. That used to be a problem because you had E3, Defender, and guardrails, but you needed an E5 license to get the management suite and the analytics. It's more flexible now. You can switch from a la carte to the entire suite when it starts to make sense. It's becoming more economically competitive to go that route."
"Microsoft Defender is an expensive product in my country."
"We are required to pay for the data we ingest, and increasing the data amount incurs additional expenses."
"There is an annual license required to use this solution."
"Tanium is a more expensive solution in Latin America than some of the competitors, such as BigFix."
"It's an expensive solution. It would be nice if the cost were lower."
"The product's pricing differs from region to region depending on negotiations and the number of endpoints."
"The solution is expensive but it's a good investment."
"It is higher than some competitors in the market."
"The solution offers value for money."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are best for your needs.
879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

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 ...
What do you like most about Tanium?
The product is granular and can build complex roles compared to other EDR vendors.
What needs improvement with Tanium?
While there is always room for improvement, I am pleased with Tanium.
What is your primary use case for Tanium?
The primary use case for Tanium ( /products/tanium-reviews ) is compliance, patching, and inventory as part of the core functions.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Tanium Inc Cloud, Tanium XEM
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
JPMorgan Chase, eBay, Amazon, US Bank, MetLife, pwc, Cerner, Delphi, MGM Grand, New York Life
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Tanium and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.