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Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence vs Palo Alto Networks WildFire comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence offers major ROI by saving 62% on budgets and providing comprehensive threat protection and business value.
Sentiment score
7.5
Palo Alto Networks WildFire efficiently prevents threats, reduces costs significantly, and integrates seamlessly for comprehensive real-time security.
The service generates a low rate of false positives, reducing the overhead of managing false positive events.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Defender support experiences vary; community platforms help, technical support is inconsistent, with level two proving effective.
Sentiment score
7.3
Palo Alto Networks WildFire support excels for large companies, with varied quality and responsiveness for others, depending on region.
Level two support is knowledgeable and knows how the product works, which is very good.
There is a lack of SLA adherence, and third-party partners do not provide prompt responses.
The support is quite difficult to access promptly.
The service response times are aligned with standards, responding within a few hours based on the problem's criticality.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence is highly scalable, serving diverse businesses effectively, though costs may rise with increased users.
Sentiment score
8.2
Palo Alto Networks WildFire excels in adaptability, scalability, and seamless integration, meeting diverse organizational demands and high-performance standards.
If there were some customizations available, I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten.
Wildfire is highly scalable.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is scalable, and I give it a nine for scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence offers high reliability and performance, with occasional regional outages, comparable to Office 365 stability.
Sentiment score
8.4
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is highly reliable, stable, and efficient, excelling in large-scale deployments and seamless cloud integration.
It provides a high level of security and avoids phishing and scam emails.
 

Room For Improvement

Improving pricing, integration, stability, and support could enhance Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence's market accessibility and effectiveness.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire needs improvements in cost, user interface, ease of deployment, integration, detection capabilities, and support efficiency.
Providing code customization would help keep pace with new vulnerabilities and threats.
The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings.
The support could be improved, as it takes a while to get assistance from the vendors.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence offers cost-effective bundling with E5 licenses, beneficial for enterprises but challenging for SMEs preferring E3.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is valued for advanced security despite high costs, preferred by enterprises but challenging for smaller firms.
I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of affordability.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence offers advanced detection, seamless integration, robust security, proactive monitoring, and effective zero-day vulnerability management.
WildFire offers sandboxing, App-ID, and automation, excelling in threat detection with real-time updates and seamless integration.
One of the best features is that it provides a certain level of customization, allowing us to set our spam confidence levels.
Integrating Palo Alto Networks WildFire with various security protocols similar to a firewall has significantly improved the overall threat detection capabilities in our organization.
The most valuable feature of Wildfire is its sandboxing capability for examining suspicious files or locations.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender Threat I...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Threat Intelligence Platforms (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (18th)
Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is 12.3%, up from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Nim Nadarajah - PeerSpot reviewer
A native Microsoft solution the provides great ROI and continuously improves its offering
We have Microsoft bias. We generally don't have any significant negative feedback or improvement points around Defender, EDR and CMDR platforms. It does a good job across the board. The price point is something they can improve slightly for those who don't have an M 365 E5. I believe it's a $2.80 cents add-on. In Canadian, that's expensive. If they can drop it to a dollar, for those who don't have M 365 E5, they're going to open up market share and increase affordability for an entire market segment in the medium business category. Other than that, we have no major negative feedback.
AjayKumar17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced cybersecurity with advanced sandboxing and effective in controlling DNS issues
Improvements are needed in the UI part. The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings. This information should be integrated with the Dashboard so that system admins can see what is happening. Furthermore, technical support needs a lot of improvement, particularly in terms of responsiveness and adhering to service level agreements.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Educational Organization
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

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?
Some of the customization features could be improved by providing a portion of it as open source. This would allow integration with other solutions, enhancing Threat Intelligence. Providing code cu...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
We are using Microsoft Defender ATP specifically as an email security solution, as well as for our critical servers as a web security solution. We have almost eleven hundred users utilizing it for ...
How does Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks Wildfire?
The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly straightf...
Which is better - Wildfire or FortiGate?
FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy nav...
How does Cisco ASA Firewall compare with Palo Alto's WildFire?
When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox featu...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence vs. Palo Alto Networks WildFire and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.