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Malwarebytes Teams vs Microsoft Defender for Business comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

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

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Malwarebytes Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.8%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Malwarebytes Teams is 1.7%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 1.5%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.8%
Microsoft Defender for Business1.5%
Malwarebytes Teams1.7%
Other93.0%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
reviewer2594097 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at a wholesaler/distributor with 11-50 employees
Exceptional malware protection with regular updates and behavior-based detection
There are no built-in backups or integrated backup options, which could be an opportunity. The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it. Other customers have mentioned issues with false positives. It lacks enterprise-level management and more enterprise functionality. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are much more enterprise-grade solutions. Malwarebytes has limited integration with cybersecurity tools and lacks enterprise integrations because it is not an enterprise product.
Paritosh Jani - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate VP (Managed Information Technology Services) at Dev Information Tech Pvt Ltd
Has delivered automated threat response and streamlined integration with advanced tools
The best features of Microsoft Defender for Business include it coming as an XDR solution which provides automated investigations, remediations, and endpoint detection and response. Moreover, it can be tightly integrated with vulnerability management or detecting vulnerabilities and pushing them to the SIEM solution. I utilize the advanced threat hunting feature of Microsoft Defender for Business and find it helpful; it's good and improving with every update. Microsoft Defender for Business integrates effectively with the Microsoft ecosystem as with Azure Sentinel, and it has a two-way natural integration. Apart from that, it also integrates with industry SIEM solutions such as Splunk.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The multi-layered approach to the product gives you confidence that it will stop exploits, ransomware, worms, or viruses from compromising endpoints, essentially providing peace of mind."
"The most valuable features of this product are the management capabilities, which allow an IT organization to get quite a good picture of attempted cyber attacks, and its out-of-the-box investigation capabilities."
"My advice for anybody who is considering Cortex XDR is that it is a complete solution, and has very good features."
"It is a simple platform to use."
"The solution is a new generation XDR that has a lot of artificial intelligence modules."
"If you are looking to deploy a security solution as a whole, this is a good option."
"We can use Cortex XDR to get the entire graph of the incidents from source to destination, and we can take remedial action."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"It enhanced our performance in our company."
"We have a small IT team, and being able to manage even a small fleet of devices that are out in the field and being able to respond and remediate really quickly from the cloud-based console has been really helpful for us."
"The technical support services are good."
"Being able to carry out a full scan on your system."
"I commonly recommend Malwarebytes to people due to the fact that I find it quite reliable."
"The protection is really good with Malwarebytes. It's also user friendly and quite easy to set up."
"Considering the overall management of the system and seeing what is being protected, it is doing a great job."
"The behavior-based detection is very nice, and it combats zero-day threats by looking for anomalous behaviors."
"Microsoft Defender for Business offers the best pricing option in the market and is very cost-effective."
"The solution is effective, continuously improving, and highly regarded, especially with Microsoft's leadership in the industry."
"Defender's main strength is its integration with Microsoft Sentinel, offering valuable insights."
"Because Microsoft Defender for Business is a native solution to Microsoft 365, it has contributed to my organization's proactive defense strategies by saving time on integration."
"I would recommend Microsoft Defender for Business to others, rating it as ten out of ten."
"Using Microsoft Defender for Business is beneficial for my company."
"Microsoft Defender for Business works well with the Microsoft Azure Security ecosystem, including Defender for Endpoint and Office 365 Cloud."
"I recommend Microsoft Defender for Business to startup organizations looking for a plug-and-play solution."
 

Cons

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a strong tool, but it is true that digesting information sometimes makes the tool go a little bit slower."
"It is not a suitable solution if you are looking for a single product with multiple features such as DLP, encryption, rollback, etc."
"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"The tool needs to be improved in terms of integration and interface."
"In terms of areas of improvement, we have not completed our review of the product. We're also looking at other products. So, it's a little bit hard to tell what could be different because we have not completed the review of this product, but based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"The downside to the solution is that there are a large number of false positives."
"The GUI could be improved."
"It's more focused on network communication. If a customer wants to increase the level of protection and start working with documents, it's impossible to integrate these features into the system. It's more of a communication-oriented system than a content security-oriented system."
"Its price can also be improved. It is really expensive."
"The product could be improved in blocking malicious traffic, such as communication with known malicious IP addresses."
"Malwarebytes can improve its network database. Malwarebytes can scan the files and registry. It can scan the system with a light agent. It will not impact the performance of your PC. You can do the full scan and database scan using the EDR, and the RAM and CPU consumption will not increase."
"A solution must be installed in the main gateway to give an overview of the incoming and outgoing traffic. The technical support team's response time should be faster."
"Malwarebytes is too simplistic. From a SOC IR perspective, it doesn't give you very much data around it. It doesn't tie things or provide SHA-1 and SHA-256 detection information, which makes it hard to do an additional investigation."
"Strictly in terms of cyber security, the release cycle should be quarterly, at most. It shouldn't be more frequent than that because, for one thing, keeping up with tech support is difficult."
"Overall, I haven't found any ways the solution lacks in features or usability."
"We had a little performance problem with the solution, but that's been resolved. Since then, it's been running well."
"The tool's support is an area of concern where improvements are needed."
"I have an open case for close to two months with no responses or updates, except for an email response, and I've made four or five phone calls regarding the Microsoft Interconnect for AD and cloud tenant."
"The security could always be improved."
"Talking with the tool's technician about any problem is very complicated."
"The pricing of Microsoft Defender for Business has a long way to go since people are still preferring solutions such as CrowdStrike and Palo Alto."
"I see room for improvement in Microsoft Defender for Business, particularly regarding the consolidation of all security solutions in one place and the integration of AI and data security into the same platform."
"The technical support from Microsoft is very poor. I would rate it a one, as their technical staff are very junior and take a long time to respond to simple questions."
"If I need logs and don't have local storage bundled with Defender, I need to add workspace and log analytics, which is costly for storing logs of 2 GB, 5 GB, 10 GB."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is moderate."
"Very costly product."
"The price of the product is not very economical."
"I am using the Community edition."
"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"We expect to pay $1,000 USD a month, depending on the number of users."
"Malwarebytes is a cost-effective product."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"The licensing is per seat, with clients being a little less expensive than servers. If we need more licenses, we can accomplish that within a day. As Malwarebytes adds new features to their product, such as DNS filtering and a patching module, they want to charge us more even though we're a premium user, which isn't ideal."
"It is expensive."
"The price of Malwarebytes is in the middle range compared to other vendors."
"The platform pricing is competitive with other antivirus products."
"Since we're a nonprofit, we get pretty good discounts on the tool."
"The tool's cost has been a little high, but I do not think it was terrible."
"Defender for Business is included by default with an Office 365 premium subscription."
"It has to get more competitive because we are starting to see some of the competitors providing better pricing, and some of it, of course, is to gain market share. The Defender product pricing is probably a little higher than the competitors."
"The tool is cheap, while some other solutions are more expensive. I remember the tool cost about five euros for a workstation or for a user on a monthly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise53
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. ...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
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,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Malwarebytes?
I really hate the automatic rebilling without officially confirming it with me. It's an annoyance and they should at ...
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes?
It takes up too much space when it's trying to run in the background.
What is your primary use case for Malwarebytes?
My primary use case is that it's protecting me against malware.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?
Our thoughts on the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Business are that we wish it could be better. If the pricing w...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?
I see room for improvement in Microsoft Defender for Business, particularly regarding the consolidation of all securi...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Knutson Construction
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Malwarebytes Teams vs. Microsoft Defender for Business and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
904,146 professionals have used our research since 2012.