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Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Saviynt comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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...
Ranking in Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
1st
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)
Saviynt
Ranking in Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
9th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (4th), Identity Management (IM) (5th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (11th), Identity and Access Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 17.7%, down from 26.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Saviynt is 1.9%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
 

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.
VinayM - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for IAM, IGA, MFA, SSO, and access management
The technical support team's response time could be improved. After the implementation, Saviynt should provide good support to their customers. While migrating from legacy applications to the cloud, Saviynt has many bugs. The lift and shift are not very seamless. There are a lot of customizations to be done and some development is required. From the migration point of view, the solution is a little buggy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Defender for Identity has not affected the end-user experience."
"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."
"The basic security monitoring at its core feature is the most valuable aspect. But also the investigative parts, the historical logging of events over the network are extremely interesting because it gives an in-depth insight into the history of account activity that is really easy to read, easy to follow, and easy to export."
"The integration into the Microsoft Defender ecosystem is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Identity."
"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."
"It automates routine testing and helps automate the finding of high-value alerts."
"The feature I like the most about Defender for Identity is the entity tags. They give you the ability to identify sensitive accounts, devices, and groups. You also have honeytoken entities, which are devices that are identified as "bait" for fraudulent actors."
"This product works well out of the box and if you don’t want to do a lot of configuration then this is the best tool."
"Saviynt is used for the greenfield implementation for the whole IAM, IGA, MFA, SSO, and access management."
"It gives very good and in-depth knowledge about a particular identity. Everything is through a single click. We get to know the workflows related to a particular identity with a single click."
"The product's initial setup phase is simple."
"It's easy to manage and easy to use; a simple tool for end-users."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"Saviynt has a lot of potential with many features available for users."
"It is very easy to use. It addresses most of the trends in identity governance and risk management."
 

Cons

"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 areas of Microsoft Defender for Identity that can be improved include its cost, which is quite expensive when integrated into Sentinel. Additionally, there is room for improvement in its integration with non-Microsoft applications and systems."
"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."
"I would like to be able to do remediation from the platform because it is just a scanner right now. If you onboard a device, it shows you what is happening, but you can't use it to fix things. You need to go into the system to fix it instead."
"The solution could improve how it handles on-premises Android-related attacks."
"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."
"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."
"We observe a lot of false positives. Sometimes, when we go for a coffee break, we lock our screens. Locking the screen has a separate Windows event ID and sometimes I see it is detected as a failed login."
"The solution does not work very well as the number of users increases."
"The tool is difficult to migrate."
"It is time-consuming to troubleshoot issues."
"UI and support could be improved. The frequent updates and version changes can be disruptive for large organizations. Not every month, a large organization can go with the changes. Saviynt needs to consider this carefully."
"An area for improvement in Saviynt is that there's a limitation on the number of logs you can get from the past twenty-four hours. For example, if the data is huge, the tool can only give you a maximum of one hundred logs. You can't get any further than that. In the next version of Saviynt, however, you can get more logs and you'll see them inside the log rotation. For example, when you're trying to search inside the log, you can select a date range, and then you can search for a particular log. We haven't used that new log rotation feature yet, but it's included in the next release of Saviynt. Another area for improvement in the tool is that it doesn't have a server monitoring feature, so if your server has a high load, it should give you a warning. You're supposed to get an alert similar to what's being done in WebLogic. In WebLogic, we had a separate facility, but in Saviynt, that feature's missing."
"The product can improve the customer support offered to users since it is an area with shortcomings."
"The customer support and implementation services need to be improved."
"The product lacks a broad user base which makes it difficult sometimes to find answers to questions about the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."
"Microsoft Defender for Identity comes as part of the Microsoft E5 licensing stack."
"Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."
"The solution has a pay-as-you-go licensing model, and you can subscribe monthly or yearly."
"Saviynt's pricing is acceptable and licensing costs are yearly."
"If you are investing in securing your data and avoiding any non-compliance issues, then yes, it is certainly recommended. To put it plainly, if you're willing to pay fines and aren't concerned about the misuse of data, then there might not be a problem. However, if you intend to safeguard the data of your employees, vendors, and customers, it becomes crucial. In this context, managing data security requires preventive and detective measures, such as enforcing segregation of duties and regularly reviewing permissions. Throughout an individual's life cycle within an organization or customer life cycle, various access permissions are granted. Without taking action on these permissions, there is a risk of exposure later on. If individuals retain access after leaving the organization, it poses a serious security threat. Implementing solutions like Saviynt can address these challenges, ensuring continuous access review, generating reports, alerts, and identifying potential risks."
"We are not into the licensing part. The clients take care of the licensing part."
"The price of the license for this product is quite expensive."
"If you need to make any changes then there are additional fees."
"The pricing is comparable to Azure Entra ID. Kind of the same"
"Saviynt has a competitive price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare 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?
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 do you like most about Saviynt?
It is very easy to use. It addresses most of the trends in identity governance and risk management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Saviynt?
Saviynt is very affordable compared to its competitors. It is cloud-based, making it significantly cheaper than on-premises solutions. This cost-effectiveness aligns well with the Saudi market, whe...
What needs improvement with Saviynt?
We are in the deployment stage, so it's too early to determine specific improvement areas. However, bringing more people on the ground could enhance Saviynt's market presence. While Saviynt has pot...
 

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.
Shell, McKesson, Kimberly-Clark, Ingram Micro, Intermountain Health Care, Forterra, CoreLogic
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Saviynt and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.