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Microsoft Defender for IoT vs Microsoft Sentinel 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 IoT
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
24th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
IoT Security (5th), Operational Technology (OT) Security (6th)
Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for IoT is 1.0%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.7%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.7%
Microsoft Defender for IoT1.0%
Other94.3%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

AA
Principale Systems Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Effective network monitoring with identified documentation improvements needed
The documentation for Microsoft Defender for IoT is lacking. There are no clear steps or guidance, and updates are frequent, which adds to the confusion. More detailed documentation with video instructions for tasks would be helpful. The system capabilities are not well-documented either. Importing device names and maintaining a list can be cumbersome, as it requires manual input for a large number of devices. The backup and restore process is limited to GUI for backup but lacks a GUI for restore, though future updates might address this. Sentinel documentation is also poor, with limited guidance available.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The graphics and analysis in Microsoft Defender for IoT are very representative."
"I find Microsoft Defender very effective in vulnerability management and it provides good attack reduction, making it a next-generation protection solution."
"It is manageable and integrates with other Microsoft products, which is crucial for me."
"Mainly, it is manageable and integrates with other Microsoft products, which is crucial for me."
"I believe it is best suited for cloud services and is unmatched by other cloud security solutions."
"Some advantages of Microsoft Defender for IoT are that it's easy to install on any OS, and you can create any custom use cases easily."
"As a cybersecurity consultant, the best part of Microsoft Defender for IoT is the capability to integrate with other tools such as Microsoft Sentinel and receive real-time alerts from the product."
"It has a lot of great features."
"The dashboard that allows me to view all the incidents is the most valuable feature."
"The features that stand out are the detection engine and its integration with multiple data sources."
"Log aggregation and data connectors are the most valuable features."
"Sentinel also enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem and not just from the Microsoft ecosystem. It can receive data from third-party vendors' products such firewalls, network devices, and antivirus solutions. It's not only a Microsoft solution, it's for everything."
"Microsoft Sentinel comes preloaded with templates for teaching and analytics rules."
"Microsoft Sentinel's ability to correlate data from multiple sources has improved our capability significantly."
"I believe one of the main advantages is Microsoft Sentinel's seamless integration with other Microsoft products."
 

Cons

"Customer service and support from Microsoft are costly. The execution by engineers is expensive, and the service is neither free nor toll-free, making it less accessible for customers."
"The only improvement I see is that some detection explanations are vaguely provided by Microsoft, resulting in generic IoT detections that alert me to an issue yet don't specify what's wrong."
"Microsoft Defender for IoT is not scalable. If you want to monitor another industrial network, you need an additional server, making it less scalable."
"The primary area that needs improvement is compatibility with the latest IoT technologies."
"The documentation for Microsoft Defender for IoT is lacking. There are no clear steps or guidance, and updates are frequent, which adds to the confusion."
"The only improvement I see is that some detection explanations are vaguely provided by Microsoft, resulting in generic IoT detections that alert me to an issue yet don't specify what's wrong."
"There are a few limitations with Microsoft Defender for IoT. We raised concerns with the product team because they don't capture all the information regarding command execution or processes executed on certain endpoints."
"The following would be a challenge for any product in the market, but we have some in-house apps in our environment... our apps were built with different parameters and the APIs for them are not present in Sentinel. We are working with Microsoft to build those custom APIs that we require. That is currently in progress."
"There are certain delays. For example, if an alert has been rated on Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, it might take up to an hour for that alert to reach Sentinel. This should ideally take no more than one or two seconds."
"There is a wider thing called Jupyter Notebooks, which is around the automation side of things. It would be good if there are playbooks that you can utilize without having to have the developer experience to do it in-house. Microsoft could provide more playbooks or more Jupyter Notebooks around MITRE ATT&CK Framework."
"The product can be improved by reducing the cost to use AI machine learning."
"Sentinel still has some anomalies. For example, sometimes when we write a query for log analysis with KQL, it doesn't give us the data in a proper way... Also, the fields or columns could be improved. Sometimes, it is not giving the desired results and there is a blank field."
"Microsoft Sentinel's search efficiency can be improved, especially for queries spanning large datasets or long timeframes like 90 days compared to competitors like Splunk."
"The interface could be more user-friendly. It''s a small improvement that they could make if they wanted to."
"The playbook development environment is not as rich as it should be. There are multiple occasions when we face problems while creating the playbook."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Sentinel's pricing is on the higher side, but you can get a discount if you can predict your usage. You have to pay ingestion and storage fees. There are also fees for Logic Apps and particular features. It seems heavily focused on microtransactions, but they may be slightly optional. By contrast, Splunk requires no additional fee for their equivalent of Logic. You have a little more flexibility, but Sentinel's costs add up."
"Some of the licensing models can be a little bit difficult to understand and confusing at times, but overall it's a reasonable licensing model compared to some other SIEMs that charge you a lot per data."
"Microsoft can enhance the licensing side. I feel there is confusion sometimes... They should have a single license in which we have the opportunity to use the EDR or CASB solution."
"The product is costly compared to Splunk."
"It comes with a Microsoft subscription which the customer has, so they don't have to invest somewhere else."
"No license is required to make use of Sentinel, but you need to buy products to get the data. In general, the price of those products is comparable to similar products."
"I have worked with a lot of SIEMs. We are using Sentinel three to four times more than other SIEMs that we have used. Azure Sentinel's only limitation is its price point. Sentinel costs a lot if your ingestion goes up to a certain point."
"I have had mixed feedback. At one point, I heard a client say that it sometimes seems more expensive. Most of the clients are on Office 365 or M365, and they are forced to take Azure SIEM because of the integration."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise45
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for IoT?
I don't think I have any recommendation on improvements for Microsoft Defender for IoT because we don't use it too extensively. There are a few limitations with Microsoft Defender for IoT. We raise...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for IoT?
Clients mainly use Microsoft Defender for IoT for unfamiliar sign-in attempts and Microsoft Defender EDRs. We are using use cases for unfamiliar sign-in and malicious activity, such as user sign-in...
Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
 

Also Known As

Azure Defender for IoT
Azure Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for IoT vs. Microsoft Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.