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Microsoft Defender XDR vs Red Canary comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 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
7.3
Organizations achieve positive ROI with Microsoft Defender XDR by consolidating security measures, enhancing protection, and saving time and resources.
Sentiment score
8.5
Red Canary improved security ROI by efficiently detecting threats, reducing incident response times, and offering detailed alerts and cost savings.
We can quarantine and isolate a device within minutes.
Ever since we turned on the M5 feature set back in June, we have seen a reduced number of potentially malicious clicks and faster alerting when incidents occur.
Previously, identifying and containing threats took a long time, but now, with Microsoft Defender XDR, it takes just a few minutes.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Defender XDR support ranges in effectiveness; premium users receive better service, while standard support often involves delays and inefficiencies.
Sentiment score
8.6
Red Canary offers exceptional, proactive customer support with regular check-ins and emergency on-call services, enhancing user satisfaction.
You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.
It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.
Once issues are escalated to the second or third layer, the support is much better.
In emergencies, there is an on-call person available to resolve issues immediately.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable, integrating seamlessly across devices and departments, despite some limitations with specific requirements.
Sentiment score
6.7
Red Canary excels in scalability, seamlessly managing large data sets, integrating with systems, and maintaining performance in growing operations.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
Microsoft Defender XDR scales pretty well.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender XDR is highly stable, reliable, and effective, with minimal bugs and proactive issue resolution ensuring user confidence.
Sentiment score
8.4
Users praise Red Canary for its stability and smooth, reliable performance, even within a short two-month usage period.
The service has remained consistently online, with any issues isolated to specific components, suggesting a well-designed and modular architecture.
The services within our ecosystem have been reliable, meeting their SLAs.
It provides high-fidelity signals.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender XDR requires improvements in speed, integration, cost-efficiency, support, and AI capabilities for a better user experience.
Red Canary users seek on-premise versions, language support, firewall improvements, summary features, and pricing adjustments for smaller institutions.
The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.
Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.
Some inconsistencies exist between blades, which could be improved for a more seamless user and UI experience.
Red Canary's pricing spectrum may not be ideal for smaller financial institutions.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender XDR pricing is competitive with Microsoft 365, though standalone costs and licensing complexity impact user perception.
Enterprise users find Red Canary's pricing fair at $100 per device annually, though some prefer lower costs.
There are certainly savings when using Microsoft Defender XDR, which can range from 30%, 40%, and even up to 50%.
I would rate the pricing as eight out of ten, indicating it is a reasonable cost for the product.
Microsoft purposefully obfuscates this through marketing ploys to hide costs.
The services are higher priced.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender XDR strengthens security with integration, threat detection, centralized management, and cloud service compatibility, enhancing IT efficiency.
Red Canary integrates with EDR software for real-time threat detection, automation, and compliance support in banking and security.
With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.
This allows us to secure our systems in advance and proactively improve security, rather than waiting for incidents to occur.
Once we have it on the security dashboard, we can see a real-time storyline.
Red Canary detects threats and attack patterns, allowing us to assess any significant damage caused to the banking environment, particularly if protected data has been damaged or corrupted.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
Red Canary
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
40th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (24th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (13th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 3.2%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Canary is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Gabor Nyerd - PeerSpot reviewer
Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot
We found that sometimes integrations work, but testing them can take some time. Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected. We have a configuration in place that needs to be synchronized with another server. However, the servers are four hours apart, so this can cause delays. In general, I believe that the time it takes to configure and test a service should be shorter. Sometimes, it can take a couple of hours to test a single configuration setting. Other times, it is only ten or fifteen minutes, which is normal. However, sometimes, even immediate actions can be triggered by configuration changes, and some settings can take up to eight hours to complete. I believe that this time can be improved. Microsoft is making a lot of improvements to its services in a short period of time. This is a good thing, as it means that the services are constantly being updated and improved. However, it can be challenging for customers to keep up with the changes. For example, a customer may read about an update, understand it, and share it with their colleagues and boss. However, it may take days or weeks to test the update and get the necessary approvals. This can be especially challenging for large customers with many users or machines. In some cases, Microsoft may change a service before the customer has had a chance to implement the previous update. This can be frustrating for customers, as it means that they have to constantly learn new things and adjust their workflows. On the one hand, it is important for Microsoft to keep updating and improving its services. This helps to ensure that the services are meeting the customers' needs and that they are staying ahead of the competition. Microsoft should also be mindful of the challenges that these changes can create for customers. One way to address this challenge is to provide customers with more time to implement changes. Microsoft could also provide more information about upcoming changes so that customers can plan ahead. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to strike a balance between keeping its services up-to-date and providing customers with a smooth transition to new features.
Sagar Shekhar - PeerSpot reviewer
An open-source tool that offers great automation capabilities
Red Canary MDR generates a lot of output, so it would be good if, in the end, it generates a summary of all the previous attacks and what was the outcome of a single attack, especially so that it becomes easy for the user to see the summary and analyze the whole thing. In general, the solution currently fails to provide a summary to its users.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
Licensing is somewhat confusing, particularly when presenting our pitch decks to stakeholders and leveraging key features in premium SKUs, but we managed with some assistance from Microsoft.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
There is nothing I can think of at the moment that needs improvement. I am a contractor and finishing up soon, so I haven't encountered any issues requiring enhancements.
What do you like most about Red Canary MDR?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its automation part.
What needs improvement with Red Canary MDR?
Red Canary's pricing spectrum may not be ideal for smaller financial institutions.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
Red Canary Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
DuPont, Quanta Services, Microchip Technology, Hopkins Public Schools, Henny Penny, Schumacher Homes
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender XDR vs. Red Canary and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.