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Huntress Managed ITDR vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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

Huntress Managed ITDR
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (11th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Peace of mind in identifying compromises in your M365 tenants
Huntress Managed ITDR examines various signals from the M365 tenants. If anything suspicious is identified, their SOC analysts can take a closer look and subsequently take action. It's a comprehensive solution covering endpoints and cloud tenants, offering peace of mind. I recognized its benefits immediately, as it provides protection against M365 identity compromises, like admin account breaches.
John Rallo - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers excellent visibility into vulnerabilities and the attack surface itself
Attack surface reduction and limiting attack surface vectors are valuable features. It's helpful to isolate specific devices and get super granular with the features they offer. The visibility into the attack surface is good. It gets highly granular. I don't work on that side, but the people who do tell me they get more visibility.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The centralized management with the EDR and ITDR is beneficial."
"I rate the overall solution as a ten out of ten."
"Implementing Huntress Managed ITDR has improved our business by allowing us to be more proactive with our security posture."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"Huntress Managed ITDR examines various nulls from the M365 tenants. If anything suspicious is identified, their SOC analysts can take a closer look and subsequently take action."
"The attack surface reduction rules are the most valuable. We're able to have unattended remediation actions when the solution works side by side with a local antivirus like Microsoft Defender or Kaspersky. The attack surface reduction rules help us to proactively block and stop threats."
"We found that because the endpoint devices are based on Microsoft Windows devices and Windows Defender is integrated with the foundation and the core layer, it makes it more integrated and more agile in terms of responding to any security threats or changes or development"
"We have liked the fact that it comes with Microsoft Windows 10 and it is constantly updated with all new virus definitions. It is also updated with new security features on a regular basis."
"It integrates very well with all Windows workstations or other Microsoft Endpoint products. It also works quite well. So far, I have not had any issue that hasn't been sorted out. It doesn't use too many resources, so you don't have to install different things."
"The ransomware and malware protection is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is ransomware protection, which can detect malicious activity from IPs or a malicious payload in DLLs, or other things that can corrupt the system."
"Easy to understand and easy to set up endpoint security solution. It's a multifeatured product with web content filtering and automated investigation features. It also has a fantastic vulnerability management dashboard."
"It can reach our applications and PC activities in the cloud."
 

Cons

"More in-depth reporting could be beneficial for the solution."
"The product needs further maturity, with some improvements in the user interface."
"The product needs further maturity, with some improvements in the user interface."
"If anything, it's created more work, but that's because we're now seeing things that we weren't seeing before."
"More in-depth reporting could be beneficial for the solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by adding more security features."
"Lacks some additional integration."
"It could be easier when it comes to managing exceptions."
"If a threat actor comes in, and creates a global administrative account, they can gain access to everything and whitelist then block everything else. Having everything, including Defender, under one brand is like having all of your eggs in one basket."
"The product development team makes frequent changes that affect the stability of the solution."
"They can improve it on the online protection front since people nowadays are moving online and working from home."
"It can get a bit laggy sometimes. Other than that, we don't have any issues. They constantly tweak it and fix it up based on users' feedback. It has improved a lot over the past four years. Defender for Endpoint never really used to be a good endpoint security solution, but over the past couple of years, Microsoft has invested heavily in it. So, it has come a long way in all aspects of endpoint security. If they want to make it better, they should just continue investing in the current path of what they've been doing over the past couple of years."
"It needs to improve the cybersecurity for lateral movements. For example, when a hacker tries to enter a machine, they try to get the password by doing a lateral movement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price is fair for the features Microsoft delivers. If you want tailor-made features, you have to mix different licenses. It isn't straightforward."
"You just pay Windows 10 prices, then you have antivirus software. As a price comparison, Defender's costs are very low."
"The cost is high for E5 licenses, but if we go with the E3 license, most of the features are not covered."
"The base price for an E5 license, which includes Enterprise Mobility + Security E5, is $57 per user per month."
"There is no licensing fee."
"The licensing fee is a function of your Office 365 license. The feature set you get is a function of the license as well. There is probably an E2 version, an E3 version, and an E5 version. There are several versions, and not all features are the same. So, you might want to check what features you're expecting because you might get shocked. If you only have an E3 license, the capability isn't the same."
"The price was a problem for me three years ago, but they improved their E3, E5, and a la carte licensing. In other words, you have to get all of E5. That used to be a problem because you had E3, Defender, and guardrails, but you needed an E5 license to get the management suite and the analytics. It's more flexible now. You can switch from a la carte to the entire suite when it starts to make sense. It's becoming more economically competitive to go that route."
"We have seen ROI. Most of the other competing alternatives will cost up to around $30 per user device. We average 400 devices. Therefore, the amount that we save each year is 400 times $30."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Insurance Company
15%
University
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Huntress Managed ITDR?
More in-depth reporting could be beneficial for the solution.
What is your primary use case for Huntress Managed ITDR?
I use Huntress Managed ITDR for 365 protection, monitoring log run events, security, and abnormal logons.
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne and others in Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR). Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.