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Elastic Security vs Microsoft Defender XDR 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
5.5
Elastic Security often delivers positive ROI within two years, though user satisfaction and views on cost-effectiveness vary.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Defender XDR offers cost savings, enhanced security, and efficiency by consolidating measures, reducing cyberattack losses, and streamlining processes.
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.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Elastic Security feedback is mixed; users praise community support, yet criticize inconsistent technical support and seek faster solutions.
Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Defender XDR support varies; larger organizations benefit more, with issues in responsiveness and knowledge sharing for smaller companies.
Providing necessary assistance efficiently.
It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.
You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.
The technical support from Microsoft Defender XDR has been disappointingly slow.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Elastic Security is scalable and adaptable, suitable for diverse business needs, though skilled personnel are important for effective management.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender XDR offers scalable solutions for diverse organizations, with strengths in cloud setups and dashboard management despite some challenges.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Elastic Security is stable and reliable, though challenges arise with big data and real-time usage without proper configuration.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender XDR is praised for stability and reliability, with minor issues quickly resolved and high user satisfaction.
In terms of stability, I would rate Elastic a solid eight out of ten.
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.
 

Room For Improvement

Elastic Security faces challenges in setup, AI integration, permissions management, user support, and requires improved dashboards and cost-efficiency.
Microsoft Defender XDR needs faster scanning, better integration, simpler licensing, and improved automation for user-friendly threat management.
CrowdStrike and Defender have more established threat intelligence integration due to having a larger client base.
Elastic Security consumes a lot of resources, requiring a substantial deployment setup.
The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.
Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.
It would be better if much of that information were immediately visible, especially when looking at endpoints or users.
 

Setup Cost

Elastic Security offers a free open-source option with enterprise features based on usage, making it cost-effective for enterprises.
Microsoft Defender XDR is cost-effective with an E5 bundle but costly separately, influenced by complex licensing and geographic factors.
The pricing is reasonable, especially for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), making it a viable option for businesses building their security infrastructure.
Elastic Security is considered cost-effective, especially at lower EPS levels.
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.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Elastic Security is praised for fast search, scalability, machine learning, customization, integration, and user-friendly, cost-effective features.
Microsoft Defender XDR offers seamless integration, advanced threat hunting, and AI protection, streamlining operations and reducing costs.
Elastic Security is as flexible and configurable as Microsoft Sentinel.
Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT.
With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.
The Email Explorer feature has proven invaluable, offering a broader perspective than automated alerts and incidents alone.
The email protection feature is the most valuable because our risks primarily lie there, and it seems to be the most popular target.
 

Categories and Ranking

Elastic Security
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
16th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (6th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Nikhil-Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable with great dashboards but the premium support is poor
The initial setup can be complex if you don't have technical knowledge. However, once it is deployed, it works well. I'm not sure how long it took to deploy. I wasn't there when it was set up and configured. We have an internal team that handles deployment and maintenance. It doesn't require too many people to deploy. Five or six people would be enough. However, for 24/7 monitoring, you need to have someone always on it.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
Elastic Security is considered cost-effective, especially at lower EPS levels. However, a direct comparison was not made due to different pricing structures.
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?
It would be beneficial to reduce the number of clicks required to navigate between blades, as the current navigation and breadcrumb system can be a bit confusing. Some inconsistencies exist between...
 

Also Known As

Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Security vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.