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AWS Security Hub vs Microsoft Defender XDR 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

AWS Security Hub
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (11th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. AWS Security Hub is designed for Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and holds a mindshare of 3.0%, down 4.4% compared to last year.
Microsoft Defender XDR, on the other hand, focuses on Extended Detection and Response (XDR), holds 4.7% mindshare, down 6.5% since last year.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS Security Hub3.0%
Wiz12.6%
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks8.6%
Other75.8%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender XDR4.7%
CrowdStrike Falcon9.4%
Wazuh6.0%
Other79.9%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Karthik Ekambaram - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Scybers
Has helped identify misconfigurations and prioritize risks but lacks multi-cloud support and deeper integration features
AWS Security Hub cannot scale up to multiple different cloud environments; it only works for AWS. There are other products in the market for CSPM that can give you multi-cloud environment misconfigurations, even Microsoft for that matter. Regarding the integration of AWS Security Hub with third-party tools, I am not certain whether we can integrate them, but there is no need to do so. However, AWS Security Hub cannot integrate with other cloud providers, so it only supports the AWS environment. The compliance checks within AWS Security Hub are good, but we don't use them much. We utilize compliance frameworks such as CIS compliance frameworks and ISO 27017 framework, which are beneficial, but it can improve in other areas too, such as including NIST and other frameworks beyond just ISO and CIS. Improvements can be applicable for scalability, particularly on integration with multi-cloud environments, and compliance frameworks can be added for more variety as well. The unified dashboard in AWS Security Hub is adequate; I cannot say it is exceptional, but the content available in the dashboards is satisfactory for now.
KO
House security operator at Cypress Creek Renewables
Advanced threat hunting saves significant time in tracking and responding to incidents
Microsoft Defender XDR could be improved with a lower price. My main suggestion would essentially be what Copilot is providing, which is a single pane of glass, so I don't have to go to different windows. That's just a workflow consideration for me. It would be great to have all the information centralized into one particular data app. If I need to open up extra ones, I can, however, I would appreciate a future where everything I need is right there on one single pane of glass. Beyond that, there's really nothing else I see that I would want Microsoft to improve.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Though I'm still in the initial evaluation phase for AWS Security Hub, I would recommend it to others because it has good features."
"AWS Security Hub provides comprehensive alerts about potential compliance issues with CIS standards. The integration with third-party tools is another excellent feature. All our workloads are on AWS."
"The advantage is that it is cloud-native, and we do not need to install agents or sensors to find findings."
"I rate Security Hub ten out of ten for stability."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easy to manage...It is a scalable solution."
"Cloudposse is a valuable feature as it guarantees my security."
"AWS Security Hub can check your infrastructure against multiple compliance frameworks. You can turn on or off specific frameworks based on your needs."
"The solution shows us our compliance score."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a stable solution."
"The EDR and the way it automatically responds to ransomware and other attacks are valuable features."
"There is also one dashboard that shows us the status of many controls at once and the details I can get... It gives a great overview of many areas, such as files, emails, chats, and links. Even with the apps, it gives you a great overview. In one place you can see where you should look into things more deeply..."
"Advanced hunting is good. I like that. We can drill down to lots of details."
"It saves time for us because we don't need to go through another team or get a separate team involved just for data transfers."
"We also use Microsoft Sentinel, Defender for Cloud, Defender for Identity, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. They are all integrated and it was very easy to integrate them. In my experience with the integrations, it was just a click of a button and things were integrated. It's just a button."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a good solution and easy to use."
"The ability to hunt that IM data set or the identity data set at the same time is valuable. As incident response professionals, we are very used to EDRs and having device process registry telemetry, but a lot of times, we do not have that identity data right there with us, so we have to go search for it in some other silo. Being able to cross-correlate via both datasets at the same time is something that we can only do in Def"
 

Cons

"The telemetry doesn't always go into the control center. When you have multiple instances running in AWS, you need a control tower to take feeds from Security Hub and analyze your results. Sometimes exemptions aren't passed between the control tower and Security Hub. The configuration gets mixed up or you don't get the desired results."
"Security needs to be measured based on their own criteria. We can't add custom criteria specific to our organization. For example, having an S3 bucket publicly available might be flagged as a critical alert, but it might not be critical in a sandbox environment. So, it gets flagged as critical, which becomes a false positive. So, customization options and creating custom dashboards would be areas for improvement."
"Shortening the response time for support tickets, particularly in production issues, could make the service more efficient."
"Although AWS Security Hub does a periodic scan of your overall infrastructure, it doesn't do it in real time."
"We need more granular-level customizations to enable or disable the rules in AWS Security Hub."
"The solution is not wholly self-sufficient."
"From an improvement perspective, there is a need to add more compliance since, right now, AWS Security Hub only provides four to five compliances to control the tool."
"The solution will only give you insight if you have configure rule enabled. It should work more like Prisma Cloud and Dome9 which have a better approach."
"Microsoft Defender XDR could be improved with a lower price."
"I would like more of the features in Defender for 365 to be included in the smaller licenses. Even if I buy a small license and don't need everything, security shouldn't be a question. Security is one of the main aspects of all projects from our side, so it would be nice to have more features in the smaller licenses."
"Microsoft could improve on threat hunting and build more on threat detection and handling. The cybersecurity and cloud security posture features are a bit lesser than standard security products."
"The logs could be better."
"The user interface of Microsoft 365 Defender could improve. They could make it simpler."
"The solution could improve by having better machine learning and AI. Additionally, the interface, documentation, and integration could be better."
"The management features could be improved, particularly in terms of better integration with Intune, Microsoft's cloud-based management solution."
"The console is missing some features that would be helpful for a managed services provider, like device and user management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Security Hub is not an expensive solution."
"The price of AWS Security Hub is average compared to other solutions."
"The cost is based on the number of compliances, core checks, and services required, and for more than 10,000 recommendations, the charge is just one dollar."
"The pricing is fine. It is not an expensive tool."
"There are multiple subscription models, like yearly, monthly, and packaged."
"AWS Security Hub's pricing is pretty reasonable."
"AWS Security Hub is not an expensive tool. I would consider it to be a cheap solution. AWS Security Hub follows the PAYG pricing model, meaning you will have to pay for whatever you use."
"The price of the solution is not very competitive but it is reasonable."
"For Defender, they have Endpoint Plan 1 and Endpoint Plan 2, but I don't know on what basis they have classified Endpoint Plan 1 and Plan 2, but it has given me enough pain to pick and design Endpoint Plan 1 or Endpoint Plan 2 for my organization. In fact, we are still struggling with it. Too many SKUs are confusing. There should not be too many SKUs, and they shouldn't charge for every new feature."
"They have moved from a licensing model to pay-per-use... The question is: What happens if, for any reason, there's not enough budget to accept this model? That could be a great problem."
"The price of the solution is high compared to others and we have lost some customers because of it."
"Microsoft Defender XDR's licensing is complicated."
"I believe the pricing is fair and acceptable. I consider it to be reasonable and satisfactory."
"Sometimes 365 Defender is expensive, but it can be moderate, depending on the organization's size and the license type. We're satisfied with the cost because it gives us a product that protects our entire environment with DLP. To compromise some cost, of course, we are to complete the most secure environment."
"It has consistently offered highly appealing academic pricing, with distinct rates for higher education and general educational purposes."
"Defender XDR is included in the E5 license, but it's a bit too expensive."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) solutions are best for your needs.
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Comparison Review

it_user186927 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Operations at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Feb 16, 2015
Cybereason vs. Interset vs. SQRRL
Capture DB - they all use NoSQL db and hence solve the ad hoc query and 'go back in time' problem with current best of breed SIEM and DLP solutions that rely on real time analysis of incoming logs (and don't store them). This means deeper and quicker iterative threat analysis and assessment…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise40
 

Questions from the Community

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 needs improvement with AWS Security Hub?
AWS Security Hub cannot scale up to multiple different cloud environments; it only works for AWS. There are other products in the market for CSPM that can give you multi-cloud environment misconfig...
What is your primary use case for AWS Security Hub?
The major use case for identifying misconfigurations within the AWS environment focuses on determining whether the administrators have configured everything correctly, giving a better picture of AW...
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?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender XDR is that we are on an E5 license, so it is incorporated there. It is part of our Microsoft package.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
From my perspective, Microsoft Defender XDR can be improved with better visibility in certain areas where I can trigger host isolation on one machine. It should at least provide the option to isola...
 

Also Known As

SQRRL
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edmunds, Frame.io, GoDaddy, Realtor.com
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Security Hub vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
892,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.