Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender Threat I...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Threat Intelligence Platforms (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (15th)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence is 1.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 0.3%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
Unique Categories:
Threat Intelligence Platforms
1.8%
Microsoft Security Suite
0.3%
Firewalls
0.7%
 

Featured Reviews

Siddhant  Upadhyay - PeerSpot reviewer
May 3, 2024
The intuitive user interface and reporting are positive features
We employ this solution within our Office 365 environment, focusing primarily on email security through features like application guard, safe attachments, and safe URLs. This setup significantly aids our cybersecurity operations, helping us mitigate various threats. The team is designing a couple…
AW
Apr 19, 2023
Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time
I like the UI. Most things are accessible from the user interface and it is quite user-friendly. With respect to both VM-based firewalls and physical firewalls, it's easy to create updates. They have a centralized Palo Alto Customer Support Portal and if we require any licenses, such as a next-generation firewall license, we can easily download and integrate them with this solution. We can also schedule periodic updates. That is quite user-friendly. In terms of functionality, we are using IPSec tunneling and Palo Alto's WildFire feature. We use the security policies, Panorama, and Prisma Cloud as well. We use Panorama to manage our security policy model across on-prem and public cloud environments. It plays a key role with respect to centralized management, for physical enterprise firewalls and cloud-based firewalls. It gives you centralized control over all the infrastructure. Unified policies can be pushed from that centralized place with templates. When you deploy VM-Series Firewalls, they are quite flexible. You just have to select the instances, storage, security policies, and firewall rules. Within minutes, you can deploy the firewalls. We are also able to adjust firewall sizing on the fly, which is important. Initially, we decided on a firewall based on the throughput assumptions. But in peak hours or during a peak month for traffic, we need to scale the firewalls. That should be automatically done. AWS and Azure provide very good features and, by using them, within a second it automatically scales, based on the incoming traffic.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence assesses machines for vulnerabilities and gives remediations."
"The tool is managed from the cloud, because of which the maintenance is very low."
"The global review and remediation of malicious code is probably the most valuable feature."
"Microsoft collects trillions of signals from all over the world, which is incredibly valuable. It helps us identify zero-day vulnerabilities and global threats."
"The tool can proactively detect potential incidents."
"The product is useful when the end user downloads malware files."
"Microsoft's integration into the security stack works quite well."
"The product’s most valuable feature is the ability to provide threat detection and protection simultaneously."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is very easy to use."
"The tool's cloud version makes application migration easy."
"We can monitor the traffic manually and detect threats. Additionally, we can block different IP addresses and URLs."
"The most valuable feature is the CLI."
"It scales linearly with load and no issues."
"Centralized management is valuable because it allows us to configure settings in one location and apply them across all three locations."
"The feature that I have found the most useful is that it meets all our requirements technically."
"In terms of security breaches, the product aids in categorizing and monitoring traffic, allowing for the identification of potentially malicisous or incorrectly formatted applications."
 

Cons

"One area that can be improved is reducing false positives."
"I would like to see more integration with other solutions. For example, integration well with Microsoft but not with other solutions."
"The solution could be more stable and precise because, at times, the threats detected are not legitimate."
"It's a bit complicated to manage because you have many dependencies of servers, many dependencies in queue, and so on. Entries or different endpoints, and you make different configuration topics for each one. So that's a major problem."
"There could be AI functionality included for features like reporting and dashboard preparation."
"Having up-to-date documentation and real-time reflections in all portals would be beneficial to keep users informed about any changes. Additionally, the frequent changes in Microsoft's UI and the movement of features between different products in the set pose difficulties."
"One area where Microsoft Defender could be improved is in its support for non-Microsoft products, particularly for systems running Linux or other open-source platforms across ecosystems."
"While the current setup meets our needs, Microsoft can constantly improve customization and adaptability to rapidly evolving cybersecurity threats."
"They made only a halfhearted attempt to put in DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
"It would be good if the common features work consistently in physical and virtual environments. There was an integration issue in the virtual deployment where it didn't report the interface counters, and we had to upgrade to the latest version, whereas the same thing has been working in the physical deployment for ages now. It seems that it was because of Azure. We were using VMware before, and we didn't have any such issues. We do see such small issues where we expect things to work, but they don't because of some incompatibilities. There also seems to be a limitation on how to do high availability in a virtualized environment. All features should be consistently available in physical and virtual environments. It is not always easy to integrate Palo Alto in the network management system. We would like to be able to compare two network management systems. They can maybe allow monitoring an interface through the GUI to create a reference or do a baseline check about whether your network monitoring system is actually giving you the correct traffic figures. You need traffic figures to be able to recognize the trends and plan the capacity."
"From time to time, they have released some content updates that have some issues, maybe twice a year."
"Palo Alto should update their documentation to make it more readable and provide easier-to-follow instructions through videos."
"I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
"The implementation should be simplified."
"We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple."
"The reporting part of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product."
"The product is a part of my Microsoft 365 subscription, so there is no additional cost. It is cost-effective."
"The tool is expensive as a stand-alone solution. However, it is not cheap when you purchase it as a bundle."
"They offer two license plans: Microsoft Defender for endpoints and Microsoft Defender for businesses."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable and not very expensive."
"The product has multiple subscription models."
"Considering Microsoft is constantly changing licensing, I would give it a seven out of ten. It can be difficult to get your head around it, especially for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)."
"Microsoft's pricing structure involves annual fees."
"Regarding pricing, I initially downloaded the product for feature comparison purposes, not specifically due to pricing concerns. However, the current licensing model can be a sore point as we're paying for features we're not fully utilizing. Simplifying the pricing structure would be beneficial, especially given the duplication of services in some cases, leading to increased costs."
"It is not the cheapest on the market. The total cost for two firewall instances is $75,000. This includes licenses, deployment fees, and support for two years."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"When you have a client compare box against box, a lot of times Palo Alto is a bit more expensive, but its network firewalls have a very rich ratio."
"The pricing and licensing of this product on AWS should be from $1.28/hr or $4,500.00/yr. Then, it would be a good price for the performance that it delivers."
"One of the factors for selecting Palo Alto was they had flexible pricing. They had a pay-as-you-go model. Comparable to other products, such as Check Point, the price point was definitely a plus."
"We found purchasing process the product on the AWS Marketplace to be very good."
"Based on the customer budget, they can choose from 12-month, 36-month, or 60-month licensing models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Educational Organization
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
It just runs in the background. I don't have to worry about, making sure it's Intelligence. So, you know, this kind of makes it very easy, have to worry about installing. It is easy to use.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
I would like to see more frequent updates, which is always better for security because of daily threats.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
The product helps us monitor business devices for authentication and response on all endpoints, servers, passwords, and plans.
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...
How does Azure Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks VM Series?
Both products are very stable and easily scalable. The setup of Azure Firewall is easy and very user-friendly and the overall cost is reasonable. Azure Firewall offers a solid threat awareness, can...
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.