FortiXDR vs Microsoft Defender XDR comparison

Fortinet and Microsoft are both solutions in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category. Fortinet is ranked #29 with an average rating of 8.0, while Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.4. Fortinet holds a 0.6% mindshare in XDR, compared to Microsoft’s 7.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

FortiXDR

Read 4 FortiXDR reviews

796 Views
370 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Defender XDR

Read 96 Microsoft Defender XDR reviews

7,297 Views
5,518 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

FortiXDR

Microsoft Defender XDR

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between FortiXDR and Microsoft Defender XDR based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed FortiXDR vs. Microsoft Defender XDR Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

FortiXDR vs. Microsoft Defender XDR

February 2025

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Helped 842,592 peers since 2012

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

FortiXDR

Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

29th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Defender XDR

Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of FortiXDR is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 7.3%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

Featured Reviews

Abdulrahman Mashabi

Sales Director at Virtual Vision (V2)

Affordable pricing improves access to solutions with scalable and efficient protection

We are a system integrator and cloud service provider. Although I am in sales and not technical, I am involved with these products to sell them to our customers We are using FortiGate and FortiWeb mostly. Additionally, we are engaged with FortiXDR and FortiEDR. They could change their licensing…

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Gabor Nyerd

Enterprise mobility and security evangelist at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is stable enough."

"The most valuable feature of FortiXDR is it integrates well with other Fortinet solutions, such as Fortinet firewall, FortiMail, FortiSandbox, Forti Fabric, switches, and access points. Whatever the flow of the traffic comes in or goes out, the entire traffic can be managed and monitored properly."

"The most valuable feature of FortiXDR is its ability to block clients, providing comprehensive endpoint protection."

"Our customers are satisfied with FortiXDR."

"FortiXDR is valuable for its integration capabilities with one hundred percent compatibility with other vendors in cloud environments like Google, Oracle, and Microsoft."

"I like how Microsoft XDR and the other Microsoft products are integrated into a single unified security stack covering identity access management, endpoint protection, email, cloud applications, etc."

"Microsoft Defender XDR is a complete package of different Defender solutions, including Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, Defender for Cloud, and Sentinel SIEM, among others."

"A crucial aspect for our team is the inclusion of identity and access management tools from the vendor."

"The incident threat response and its ability to facilitate effective remediation against threats are the standout features."

"The most valuable feature of all is the full integration with the rest of the software in the operating system and Office 365, as well as Microsoft SCCM. It is quite easy for us to work with the whole instance of Microsoft products. This integration improves the benefits of the whole suite of products."

"The unified view of the threat landscape on a central dashboard is the most valuable feature."

"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..."

"We can use Defender to block and monitor for security purposes without needing multiple other products to do different tasks."

More Microsoft Defender XDR pros

Cons

"They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses."

"The pricing of FortiXDR should be improved. It's a point of concern for us."

"Improvement is needed in the intuitiveness and integration measures of FortiXDR, especially in terms of compatibility."

"The pricing of FortiXDR should be improved."

"Improvement is needed in the intuitiveness and integration measures of FortiXDR, especially in terms of compatibility."

"Many of the solutions, such as CrowdStrike have an MDR solution where remediation can be provided by the vendor. For example, if there is any zero data threat found, a new threat that the customer is not able to recognize, fix, or understand what needs to be done this feature has to be added in FortiXDR so that the customer feels comfortable."

"They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses."

"When discussing the secure score, which includes overviews and recommended actions, some of these recommended actions are not applicable to us, particularly those related to Microsoft Internet Explorer, which we do not use in any of our environments."

"The Defender agent itself is more compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11. Other than these two lines, there are so many compatibility issues. Security is not only about Microsoft. The core technical aspects of it are quite good, but it would be good if they can better support non-Microsoft solutions in terms of putting the agents directly into VMware and other virtualization solutions. There should be more emphasis on RHEL and other operating systems that we use, other than Windows, in the server category."

"Sometimes, digging into the information and knowing where to go can be difficult. It would be better if much of that information were immediately visible, especially when looking at endpoints or users."

"The licensing process needs improvement and clarification, as it is currently difficult to understand which features are licensed to which users."

"The design of the user interface could use some work. Sometimes it's hard to find the exact information you need."

"The logs could be better."

"The support from Microsoft could improve. There are times I have to wait for a response from a qualified specialist."

"It would be beneficial to have a more seamless experience with everything consolidated in one place, particularly when dealing with aspects related to the Exchange console."

More Microsoft Defender XDR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an expensive solution compared to other vendors, such as Check Point."

"The most valuable licensing option is expensive, so pricing could be improved. Licensing options for this solution also need to be consolidated, because they frequently change."

"With the little idea I have about the costs, I can say that XDR tools tend to be a bit expensive. If you are using Microsoft Defender XDR, then you need to go for a subscription-based pricing model."

"It is 15 dollars per server per month. It is worth it, but it can be costly. It depends on the company's size."

"Microsoft is not competitive with the pricing of the solution. The competitors are able to offer lower discounts. The price of the solution is higher."

"We have a lot of problems in Latin America regarding the price of Microsoft 365 Defender, because the relationship between dollars and the money of the different countries, it's is a lot. Many customers that have small businesses say that they would like the solution but it is too expensive. However, large companies do not find the cost an issue."

"The price could be better. Normally, the costs depend on the country you're located in for the license. When we were in the initial stage, we went with the E5 license they call premium standard. It cost us around $5.20 per month for four users."

"I find the pricing to be quite competitive, especially considering its inclusion in our E5 subscription, which provides a comprehensive set of functionalities."

"365 Defender is billed per account. I don't know the exact price, but my supervisor told me that Microsoft Defender is cheaper than the alternatives. It's bundled, so you get all the features in one place."

More Microsoft Defender XDR pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

23%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiXDR?

Comparing to the enterprise level, the pricing is reasonable. However, for some companies, it might be a little high.

See all answers

What needs improvement with FortiXDR?

They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for FortiXDR?

We are a system integrator and cloud service provider. Although I am in sales and not technical, I am involved with these products to sell them to our customers.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 18% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Complete vs FortiXDR

Compared 16% of the time

ESET EDR/XDR vs FortiXDR

Compared 10% of the time

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CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 26% of the time

Wazuh vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 9% of the time

Trend Vision One vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Defender XDR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

February 2025

Download FortiXDR product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender XDR

March 2025

Download Microsoft Defender XDR product report

Also Known As

No data available

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender

Overview

XDR Defined and Explained
Extended detection and response (XDR) is a natural extension of the endpoint detection and response (EDR) concept, in which behaviors that occur after threat prevention controls act are further inspected for potentially malicious, suspicious, or risky activity that warrant mitigation. The difference is simply the location (endpoint or beyond) where the behaviors occur.

Fortinet

Microsoft Defender XDR is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect against threats in the Microsoft 365 environment.

It offers robust security measures, comprehensive threat detection capabilities, and an efficient incident response system. With seamless integration with other Microsoft products and a user-friendly interface, it simplifies security management tasks.

Users have found it effective in detecting and preventing various types of attacks, such as phishing attempts, malware infections, and data breaches.

Watch the Microsoft demo video here: Microsoft Defender XDR demo video.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.

Buyer's Guide

FortiXDR vs. Microsoft Defender XDR

February 2025

Free Report: FortiXDR vs. Microsoft Defender XDR

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