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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
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
IoT Security (5th), Operational Technology (OT) Security (5th)
Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
107
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 March 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for IoT is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.8%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.8%
Microsoft Defender for IoT1.2%
Other94.0%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Luis Gabriel Mieles Benavides - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at Sonda S.A.
Security monitoring has become proactive and threat hunting is now faster and more precise
The best features of Microsoft Defender for IoT are that it is easy to find where the intruder is and easy to capture and hunt intruders. When I need to send a full scan for a device, it is straightforward. I have worked with Symantec, which is an antivirus, and McAfee, where I send full scans in a similar way to how I do it in Azure Defender, and it is equally easy. I can take actions with the device, such as disconnecting it, turning it off, or sending an alarm. The integration with Azure Defender and Azure Sentinel is seamless because they are from the same company. They capture intruders, viruses, worms, and everything else easily, and I can fix problems quickly. I use the network visibility features daily to manage connected assets. Currently, I am closing a case with Mutual Asesorías where they have a computer with intruders attempting to force brute capture the password. I can see how the intruder tried to do this, and my work involves closing the IP origin in this case.
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

"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."
"Mainly, it is manageable and integrates with other Microsoft products, which is crucial for me."
"I find Microsoft Defender very effective in vulnerability management and it provides good attack reduction, making it a next-generation protection solution."
"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 is manageable and integrates with other Microsoft products, which is crucial for me."
"The graphics and analysis in Microsoft Defender for IoT are very representative."
"The best features of Microsoft Defender for IoT are that it is easy to find where the intruder is and easy to capture and hunt intruders."
"I believe it is best suited for cloud services and is unmatched by other cloud security solutions."
"Microsoft Sentinel comes preloaded with templates for teaching and analytics rules."
"Sentinel's most important feature is the ability to centralize all the logs in one place. There's no need to search multiple systems for information."
"One of the most valuable features of Microsoft Sentinel is that it's cloud-based."
"The solution has features that helped improve the security posture of our clients. It provides the ability to correlate a large variety of log sources very cost-effectively, especially for Microsoft sources."
"You can fine-tune the SOAR and you'll be charged only when your playbooks are triggered. That is the beauty of the solution because the SOAR is the costliest component in the market today... but with Sentinel it is upside-down: the SOAR is the lowest-hanging fruit. It's the least costly and it delivers more value to the customer."
"Azure Sentinel is actually quite handy, and very adaptive to the market trends."
"The biggest feature we've got out of it is visibility into our environment and what's going on across our estate."
"Free ingestion for Azure logs (with E5 licence)"
 

Cons

"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."
"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 documentation for Microsoft Defender for IoT is lacking. There are no clear steps or guidance, and updates are frequent, which adds to the confusion."
"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."
"The primary area that needs improvement is compatibility with the latest IoT technologies."
"Add more out-of-the-box connectors with other SaaS platforms/applications."
"Technical support doesn't understand the features well enough. Their solutions and response time aren't very good."
"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."
"The interface could be more user-friendly. It''s a small improvement that they could make if they wanted to."
"They take too long to respond, but sometimes they are great."
"Professional support is not that great. Often, I'd rather not involve them."
"Microsoft Sentinel should continue adding support for several other security brands because sometimes you have a firewall from a different brand and if you cannot correlate or integrate that seamlessly, it creates multiple points of checking information, which diminishes efficiency."
"The dashboards can be improved. Creating dashboards is very easy, but the visualizations are not as good as Microsoft Power BI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is kind of like a sliding scale. There are different tiers of pricing that go from $100 per day up to $3,500 per day. So, it just kind of depends on how much data is being stored. There can be additional costs to the standard license other than the additional data. It just kind of depends on what other services you're spinning up in Azure, or if you're using something like Azure log analytics."
"The pricing is reasonable, and we think Sentinel is worth what we pay for it."
"The are two native advantages for customers that use M365 Security and Sentinel. The first advantage is that the log or security-event ingestion into Sentinel is free. Cost-wise, they're saving a lot and that is a major advantage."
"We are charged based on the amount of data used, which can become expensive."
"The current licensing is based on the logs that are being ingested on the platform. Most of the SIEM solutions utilize that pricing model, but Microsoft should give us a customization option for controlling the kind of logs that we feed into Microsoft Sentinel. That will be much better. Otherwise, the pricing is a bit higher."
"Microsoft Sentinel's pricing is relatively expensive and extremely confusing."
"Microsoft Sentinel is expensive."
"The combination of the ease of accessibility and the free cost of the service is great. But we buy storage based on our events per second and on how many sources are integrated into the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
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 Business41
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for IoT?
In my case, I do not work with the pricing for Microsoft Defender for IoT because I work for the operator. However, I know that every device costs $15 per device, and I think this is a good price a...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for IoT?
At this moment, there are no areas that could be improved with Microsoft Defender for IoT in general. When I look inside the solution, I can see every point and every source of attempted intrusions...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for IoT?
Sonda is an integrator with its head office in Chile. I work from Colombia for a Chilean company that has many different types of clients. I currently work for Mutual Asesorías, which is a financia...
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: February 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.