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Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Rapid7 InsightIDR 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 Iden...
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st)
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (13th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (24th), Threat Deception Platforms (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Microsoft Defender for Identity is designed for Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) and holds a mindshare of 17.7%, down 26.4% compared to last year.
Rapid7 InsightIDR, on the other hand, focuses on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), holds 2.5% mindshare, down 2.7% since last year.
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Easily detects advanced attacks based on user behavior
The best feature is security monitoring, which detects and investigates suspicious user activities. It can easily detect advanced attacks based on the behavior. The credentials are securely stored, so it reduces the risk of compromise. It will monitor user behavior based on artificial intelligence to protect the identities in your organization. It will even help secure the on-premise Active Directory. It syncs from the cloud to on-premise, and on-premise modifications will be reflected in the cloud. Identity harvesting is the most common threat. Legacy Microsoft solutions and Amazon face the same issues in the cloud. Users don't implement other security mechanisms in the cloud. In an on-premise environment, we would have multiple security devices like firewalls and several layers of security. Cloud users are less bothered because cloud features are there and only need to be configured. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the best solution because all threats are completely visible, and it has a great dashboard. The dashboard displays each threat and score, so we can identify the threat rating and act efficiently to avoid compromising user identities. We have a single sign-on feature on the cloud. If we lose a single set of identities, it can compromise the entire organization, including cloud and on-premise. The same identities are being used everywhere. The user activity has to be completely visible on the dashboard, and it has to generate a pattern. It will notify us if there is any security breach. It is a complete monitoring set. Minor changes in the user identity can lead to data leakage. If a password is changed in the cloud, it will be reflected automatically in the on-premise. This minor change will trigger an alert in Microsoft Defender for Identity. It ensures that each cloud identity is well protected from spoofing. It has a comprehensive database of well-known spoofing techniques, enabling us to provide cloud identity protection completely. It has a vast scope because it is completely single sign-on. In the emerging industry, we use single sign-on because users need to authenticate, but it's challenging to remember multiple passwords. Once your user signs in, you can access all the data. An identity compromise would lead to various issues and affect the data on-premises. Defender maintains a constantly updated database with the latest signatures, attack models, and threats. If it detects one threat, it will monitor the suspicious event and give us frequent alerts. Identity protection is vital because we use an identity mechanism for everything, including firewall-related activities. The exact identity used in the cloud is used in the most complex firewalls. We require an excellent migration technique to regain this user credential if something gets compromised. Blocking this requires a massive set of procedures. Microsoft Defender comprehensively monitors identity and provides frequent alerts regarding any issue, so we don't need to think of anything else. Defender's bidirectional sync capabilities are helpful because we need to sync data from multiple directions, including tenant-to-tenant, on-premise-to-cloud, and cloud-to-cloud syncing. As a university, we have multiple tenants, so we need to sync or access data across platforms. That way, everything is more secure, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud also provides ample security for cloud transfers. The bidirectional sync capabilities are flawless—10 out of 10. Our on-premise Active Directory is perfectly synced with the Azure AD. Everything is synced with on-premise, and changes are reflected in minutes. If a problem with identity is addressed on the cloud, the fix will be mirrored on-premise and vice versa. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Identity are bundled. If we have these two solutions, we don't need to worry about anything else or third-party antivirus. Microsoft Defender for Identity acts as a link to all the Microsoft security features that require identity-based validation. Microsoft Defender instantly provides identity security for all our applications, and users need not worry about typing their passwords. Even in situations with less complex encryption mechanisms, users don't need to worry about typing in their passwords. Defender will check and monitor if there are any flaws in that, and it will let us know if there are any issues. We're a Microsoft shop, so everything works together. If one feature isn't working, everything will be affected. If Defender isn't working, half of our Microsoft security features will be dead. Without identity security, user data can easily be compromised, and data can fall into the hands of intruders or other hackers. The solutions have to complement each other. If anything got wrong, the entire setup would have flaws. Microsoft security has a legacy security mechanism. A while back, we might have gone with Defender for Endpoint, but Microsoft has also grown into the face of the cloud. The same Defender solution is completely maintaining cloud security. We can imagine Microsoft's vast scale and how Defender can protect the cloud environment from vulnerabilities and attacks. We are definitely delighted with Microsoft products. The dashboard features are fantastic because it provides a comprehensive overview. It has a great alert mechanism and log inspector that tracks when users access various servers. With this kind of identity validation, we can control which servers the users can access. We have total visibility from the dashboard. We can track identity usage even if there are no issues. That is an essential advantage.
Asim Naeem - PeerSpot reviewer
Providing comprehensive insight into alerts while working towards AI enhancement
I definitely recommend Rapid7 InsightIDR. It is becoming better, with improvements being continuously made to the product. Right now, I do not have any advice about Rapid7 for other users because every organization or user has different criteria or multiple use cases, so I refrain from commenting on that. I rate the overall solution seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is security monitoring, which detects and investigates suspicious user activities. It can easily detect advanced attacks based on the behavior. The credentials are securely stored, so it reduces the risk of compromise. It will monitor user behavior based on artificial intelligence to protect the identities in your organization. It will even help secure the on-premise Active Directory. It syncs from the cloud to on-premise, and on-premise modifications will be reflected in the cloud."
"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."
"This solution has advanced a lot over the last few years."
"The most valuable aspect is its connection to Microsoft Sentinel and Defender for Endpoint, and giving exact timelines for incidents and when certain events occured during an incident."
"All the integration it has with different Microsoft packages, like Teams and Office, is good."
"The solution’s alerting is fairly efficient."
"The solution offers excellent visibility into threats."
"One of our users had the same password for every personal and company account. That was a problem because she started receiving phishing emails that could compromise all of her accounts. Defender told us that the user was not changing their password."
"I am able to run automated actions based on the output of reports, leaving me extra time to focus on more pressing matters."
"I like that it's a cloud-based solution."
"Dashboards, including the main screen, provide much-needed information at a glance, without hours of coding and sifting through logs to find it. In case of an actual security incident, I have faith that insightIDR has retained all logs in a secure manner that prevents log tampering as well."
"InsightIDR has allowed us to find potential security issues that we did not know existed, and get remediation quickly."
"The solution is very stable and works very well for what I need it to do."
"Very intuitive and easy to set up."
"Great coverage of all systems within our network from endpoint to firewall."
"The solution's initial setup is easy."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement is the administrative interface. It's basic compared to other administrative centers. They could make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"The solution could be better at using group-managed access and they could replace it with broad-based access controls."
"One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform to promptly alert affected users and their friends."
"And when you are working in a priority IP address, Identity is not able to know that those IPs are from the company. It sees that the IPs are from Taiwan or from Hong Kong or from India, even though they are internal IPs, resulting in a lot of false positives."
"The impact of the sensors on the domain controllers can be quite high depending on your loads. I don't know if there's any room for improvement there, but that's one of the things that might be improved."
"Defender for Identity gives us visibility, but we often get false positives from Azure that take us down the garden path. We go through 30 incidents each day and most of those are false positives or benign positive alerts. Occasionally, we get true positive alerts."
"The tracking instance needs to be configured appropriately."
"The documentation provided by Microsoft is often seen as a waste of time."
"The solution's XDR agents cannot compete with the XDR solutions out there yet."
"The solution needs improvement in threat intelligence. Increasing the depth of intelligence to help users understand more about threats is a possibility. My suggestion is to expand access to other websites or resources."
"I would like to see more development in InsightIDR towards building their SIEM solution and converting it to XDR."
"One of the things that could be better is digital forensics. It is there, but it can be better. They could provide more on the endpoint detection level."
"Tenable Nessus is easier to deal with. It's more efficient and accurate. InsightIDR is heavier than Tenable in terms of performance and scanning. Rapid7 would be much easier to use if it had a network connector like Tenable. Tenable's connector allows continuous monitoring over the B caps."
"The dashboard is an area that could be simplified."
"I would like the ability to adjust the threshold of certain existing alerts. Currently the only option is to change the notifications or create my own alert."
"Customised alert recipients need to be added to allow better first-line action and quicker response. Configurable honeypots would be a welcome addition."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."
"Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."
"Microsoft Defender for Identity comes as part of the Microsoft E5 licensing stack."
"You won't be able to change your tenants from where you deploy them. For example, if you select Canada, they will charge you based on Canadian pricing. If you are also in London, when you deploy in Canada, the pound is higher than Canadian dollars, but your platform resources are billable in Canadian dollars. Using your pounds to pay for any of these things will be cheaper. Or, if you deploy in London, they will charge you based on your local currency."
"The product is costly, and we had multiple discussions with accounting to receive a discounted rate. However, on the open market, the tool is expensive."
"The solution has a mid-range price point in the market"
"Licensing is straightforward. If, for some reason, you don’t meet the minimum licensing requirements, there is a third-party managed service that can help."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"The pricing of the solution depends on the user. But there is a yearly licensing cost."
"The team is very willing to work with companies. My suggestion is to call the Rapid7 sales department and see how they can help.​"
"​Accurately predict your licensing counts as this is a subscription based product.​"
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is a cheaply priced product. On a scale of one to ten, where one is very expensive, and ten is very cheap, I rate the product's price at seven or eight."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
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?
There is room for improvement in delivering knowledge to technical users, especially regarding what we can gain from the solution and how to apply it. The documentation provided by Microsoft is oft...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
The primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity is to maintain control and privilege inside our organization and revoke rights when they are not needed. The solution is used to keep our or...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What do you like most about Rapid7 InsightIDR?
During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an applicati...
 

Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
InsightIDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: July 2023.
850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.