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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Microsoft Defender for Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

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
5.0
Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective and efficient, offering incident prevention and resolution without complex hardware setups.
Sentiment score
5.6
Determining ROI from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is challenging due to package inclusion and unclear financial benefits.
As a Microsoft partner, we receive significant discounts, making the solution affordable for us.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Opinions on Microsoft Defender for Identity support vary, highlighting responsiveness, but issues include delays, contact challenges, and false positives.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender's customer service receives mixed reviews, highlighting inconsistent support and varying effectiveness in technical assistance.
Generally, the support is more effective than other providers like Oracle.
The quality of support is very good, but troubleshooting can take time due to complex setups and the need to provide many logs.
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
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Identity efficiently integrates and scales globally, supporting diverse organizational needs within Microsoft’s ecosystem effectively.
Sentiment score
8.4
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is praised for its high scalability and seamless integration, receiving consistently high user ratings.
In a Microsoft-centric organization, especially with Azure infrastructure and Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable.
It is scalable; I evaluated the product and decided to use Defender on over 700 of our company servers.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Identity is highly reliable, with minimal incidents, seamless operation, and consistent ratings between seven and nine.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender is rated highly stable with 99% availability, despite minor portal, compatibility, logging, and memory issues.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is quite robust and built on Azure hyperscale infrastructure, with a 99% availability.
We do not see any issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Identity.
Having recently started using it, reliability is affirmed, but manual investigation is often performed to verify if alerts identified by auto-remediation are accurate.
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 Identity users seek improved cloud integration, user-friendly features, better support, and streamlined processes for enhanced threat management.
Microsoft Defender needs improvements in accuracy, customization, integration, resource efficiency, macOS support, user-friendliness, and affordability.
If Microsoft could develop a feature that indicates when impossible travel is caused by VPN connections, it would prevent unnecessary password resets and session disruptions, especially for VIP users in organizations.
One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform.
Reducing false positives is something we've been working on with Microsoft.
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 Identity is cost-effective with E5 licenses despite complex pricing and competitive against other security solutions.
Microsoft Defender offers varying pricing; complex licensing may incur additional costs, but security benefits can justify the investment.
If they can reduce the costs, organizations will be happy, and it will compensate for using the Azure environment, which is more expensive on the infrastructure as a service side.
Ensuring a fair price according to market standards.
From an organization perspective, using E5 licenses is value for money, especially if Azure and Office 365 are already in use.
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 Identity integrates with Azure to offer comprehensive threat detection, identity protection, and advanced real-time security insights.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management excels in integration, compliance, risk prioritization, and real-time assessments, enhancing security across diverse environments.
We receive an advance report of risky users, allowing us to take preemptive action before an attack causes damage to organization details.
The most valuable feature is its hybrid artificial intelligence, which gathers forensic data to track and counteract security threats, much like the CSI series in effect.
The advanced threat protection is one of the strengths of Microsoft Defender for Identity, as it utilizes user and entity analytics and can detect indicative 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 Iden...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
6th
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
16th
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 6.7%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration within the ecosystem enhances collaboration and automates functionalities
The integration into the Microsoft Defender ecosystem is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Identity. It fits very nicely with all the other Defender tools, allowing for excellent collaboration among them. It also fits seamlessly into Microsoft Sentinel SIEM. Furthermore, Microsoft security solutions can save time as they allow the automation of numerous functionalities, and the reporting inside the Microsoft ecosystem is commendable.
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
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft can improve Microsoft Defender for Identity by ensuring that installation prerequisites are included in the setup process. Installing the solution presents challenges as numerous logs and...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
My personal use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity is that it is amazing. It provides very good and deep analytics about whatever is happening in the on-premises Active Directory. The sensors...
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...
 

Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Microsoft Defender for Identity and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.