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Microsoft Sentinel vs Sophos Central 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 Sentinel
Ranking in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (3rd), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th)
Sophos Central
Ranking in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 9.9%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Central is 0.0%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Ivan Angelov - PeerSpot reviewer
Threat detection and response capabilities enhance investigation processes
My security team has been using Microsoft Sentinel for around two years. We also have Bastion and SolarWinds as part of our monitoring tools. We use a three-way tool, alongside Microsoft Sentinel, in our environment The most valuable features for us include threat collection, threat detection,…
Sandeepraj Gatla - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective security management with a user-friendly interface, efficient resource utilization, and rapid response capabilities
While Sophos Central has demonstrated commendable functionality, there is room for improvement in the realm of automation. Specifically, addressing ransomware attacks often requires leveraging external tools, deploying virtual machines, and utilizing supplementary tools like Caliper Analytics for operations and security communication. The integration of these essential functionalities directly into the software would represent a significant enhancement, streamlining the incident response process and bolstering the platform's comprehensive threat mitigation capabilities. Furthermore, a valuable addition to future releases could involve augmenting the new screen component with advanced capabilities such as XML utilization and rule integration. This enhancement, especially pertinent to tools involved in sandboxing and virtual machines within the investigation process, would greatly streamline the analysis of logs and reports. This would prove particularly beneficial in the context of email analysis, spam attack detection, and other critical security aspects. By incorporating these features, Sophos Central could further elevate its utility in facilitating in-depth security analyses and response strategies.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Sentinel is cloud native, which is a significant advantage. The data connectors that provide the ability to connect third-party log sources are highly valuable."
"The log query feature has been the most valuable because it's very good. You can put your data on the cloud and run queues from Sentinel. It will do it all very fast. I love that I don't have to upload it to an Excel file and then manually look for a piece of information. Sentinel is much faster and is good for big databases."
"We have seen at least a 60% increase in efficiency with Microsoft Sentinel and the ability to reduce the MTTD down to under five minutes and MTTR down to under fifteen."
"Previously, it was a little bit difficult to find where an incident came from, including which IP address and which country. So in Sentinel, it's very easy to find where the incident came from since we can easily get the information from the dashboard, after which we take action quickly."
"Sentinel is a Microsoft product, so they provide very robust use cases and analytic groups, which are very beneficial for the security team. I also like the ability to integrate data sources into the software for on-premise and cloud-based solutions."
"I like the unified security console. You can close incidents using Sentinel in all other Microsoft Security portals, when it comes to incident response."
"The solution offers a lot of data on events. It helps us create specific detection strategies."
"What is most useful, is that it has a good connection to the Microsoft ecosystem, and I think that's the key part."
"The interface, especially when using the software center, is quite user-friendly and easy to navigate."
"The advantage of central management, particularly in antivirus management, is that I don't need to go to each user individually."
"The standout feature is its focus on indexing, primarily designed for managing reports and logs from 500 to 1,000 endpoints, including Windows 10 hosts within the network."
"The user interface of Sophos Central is excellent. One standout feature is the ease of identifying endpoints. Another noteworthy aspect is the real-time visibility into malware threats. The solution is stable. I contacted the support team two or three times, and they responded promptly each time. They addressed my queries and concerns quickly. The initial setup was straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is that it protects my IT infrastructure from attacks."
"The product's installation phase was easy."
"The product has valuable rules and policies and user-friendly dashboard features."
"One of the most valuable features of Sophos Central is its Synchronized Security."
 

Cons

"They're giving us the queries so we can plug them right into Sentinel. They need to have a streamlined process for updating them in the tool and knowing when things are updated and knowing when there are new detections available from Microsoft."
"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."
"Their support can be challenging at times, particularly around unique experiences or circumstances with Microsoft Sentinel."
"We do have in-built or out-of-the-box metrics that are shown on the dashboard, but it doesn't give the kind of metrics that we need from our environment whereby we need to check the meantime to detect and meantime to resolve an incident. I have to do it manually. I have to pull all the logs or all the alerts that are fed into Sentinel over a certain period. We do this on a monthly basis, so I go into Microsoft Sentinel and pull all the alerts or incidents we closed over a period of thirty days."
"The reporting could be more structured."
"If I see an alert and I want to drill down and get more details about the alert, it's not just one click. In other SIEM tools, you just have to click the IP address of the entity and they give you the complete picture. In Sentinel, you have to write queries or use saved queries to get details."
"When we pass KPIs to the governance department, there's no option to provide rights to the data or dashboard to colleagues. We can use Power BI for this, but it isn't easy or convenient. They should just come up with a way to provide limited role-based access to auditing personnel"
"If Azure Sentinel had the ability to ingest Azure services from different tenants into another tenant that was hosting Azure Sentinel, and not lose any metadata, that would be a huge benefit to a lot of companies."
"The user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."
"Additionally, Sophos Central can be resource-intensive, demanding servers with a minimum of eight gigabytes of RAM, which may pose considerations for larger organizations dealing with legacy applications tied to specific OS and hardware configurations."
"The product needs to improve monitoring since it gives false positives. It needs also to improve pricing."
"SSID authentication has to be improved."
"With the current hybrid work environment and travel requirements, having a mobile solution would greatly improve our ability to access and navigate Sophos Central on the go, enhancing the overall user experience and making it a more portable solution."
"I would like to see improvements in the password recovery process within the Sophos Central solution."
"Compared to GFI KerioControl, Sophos Firewall can be made much faster at setting up VPN clients and site-to-site VPNs."
"The solution must provide a separate app for Tamper Protection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no additional costs other than the initial costs of Sentinel."
"Cost-wise, Sentinel is based on the volume of information being ingested, so it can be quite pricey. The ability to use strategies to control what data is being ingested is important."
"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 Sentinel is pretty expensive, and they recently announced that they will increase the price of all Microsoft services running in Azure by 11 percent. Luckily, I'm not responsible for the financial side. For one of my clients, the estimated cost is 880,000 euros for one year. There are additional costs for the service agreement."
"The pricing is fair... With a traditional SIEM, you pay a lump sum for licenses. But with Sentinel, it's pay-as-you-go according to the amount of data you inject."
"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 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."
"We must have saved some money with this product. It is a cloud-native product, and the ingestion is per GB. Every GB costs a certain amount of money. That is how the license of Microsoft Sentinel works."
"When compared to the market, it's relatively more cost-effective."
"The pricing is very competitive. When compared to other vendors like Fortinet, Sophos stands out, especially in terms of firewall and endpoint pricing."
"The product's pricing was somewhat high. We paid Rs. 1500 INR per license, approximately equivalent to 20 USD."
"The product is expensive compared to other products like Fortinet and Microsoft Defender."
"The price is relatively affordable."
"The product is not expensive."
"It offers the most competitive pricing compared to other vendors."
"It's not considered a cheap solution and falls more in the moderate pricing category."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Sophos Central?
One of the significant advantages of Sophos is its affordability compared to other technologies like Check Point and Fortinet.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Central?
As we get more people, we just add another item or Sophos appliances, and then we are good to go.
What needs improvement with Sophos Central?
As a user, I suggest improving Sophos Central by addressing some error messages we occasionally encounter that we just do not know what they relate to, even when it says it has resolved them. To im...
 

Also Known As

Azure Sentinel
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Sentinel vs. Sophos Central and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.