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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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Malwarebytes Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
23rd
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)
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 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 1.5%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 1.3%, down from 2.1% 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 Business1.3%
Malwarebytes Teams1.5%
Other93.4%
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.
YusufBuhari - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of IT Security at Dangote Industries Limited
Unified defenses have strengthened threat hunting and automated incident disruption
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. I want to see more organized asset inventory, including identities, cloud resources, and various network devices. While there has been innovation from Microsoft, I am concerned about the lack of risk quantification across all major security solutions, including Microsoft's. Risk quantification is essential for CISOs to assess, communicate, and translate security risks into financial impacts, which is a challenge for many security leaders today. I would like to see a clear path for prioritization of risks within Microsoft Defender for Business, especially around vulnerability management. Even though there are features to prioritize remediation of risks based on exploitability, it could be more organized. A clearer structure for prioritizing remediation of risks would help manage them more effectively, as it is impractical to address all risks simultaneously.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"These days it's machine-learning technology and behavior-based analytics features that make us more secure."
"From a single pane of glass, you can easily manage all of your endpoints."
"WildFire AI is the best option for this product."
"Overall, it's a great platform; it integrates very well with other solutions from Palo Alto and also with our vendors, the ease of use is excellent, I love the root cause analysis from Cortex, which is amazing, and in a few clicks you can have the full root cause."
"Cortex is a very good total solution on the endpoints."
"We can visualize and control the activities in the environment from anywhere."
"Being a cloud solution it is very flexible in serving internal and external connections and a broad range of devices."
"One thing that I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, it is detecting all the suspicious or malicious binaries, and it has integration with Palo Alto Firewall."
"It prevents us from having to re-image computers if they are found to be harboring malware."
"The solution has a good management interface."
"It's very versatile and thorough."
"When it comes to frontend protections, it has some of the best definitions. In addition, they do traditional signature and heuristic detection a lot better than Microsoft and some other players in that space."
"We have seen a decrease of approximately ninety percent in the number of events."
"For a company with about 100 or more PC units, the solution is quite effective, makes monitoring easy, offers a lot of reporting, and provides protection for many applications including Windows and Zoom."
"I commonly recommend Malwarebytes to people due to the fact that I find it quite reliable."
"I would recommend Malwarebytes because it's quite secure and able to prevent ransomware."
"I recommend Microsoft Defender for Business to startup organizations looking for a plug-and-play solution."
"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."
"Defender is top class in terms of functional security."
"The solution includes attack-savvy service and risk protection, part of data center management, and offers an effective single-dashboard view with Microsoft 365."
"Microsoft Defender for Business stands out due to its ease of use, particularly due to the fact that many of my customers already use Microsoft and Azure."
"Everything is stable. There have been no technical errors or stability issues."
"Using Microsoft Defender for Business is beneficial for my company."
"I rate Microsoft Defender for Business a 10 out of 10."
 

Cons

"I don't like that they have different types of licenses. For example, if users select a license, they think they will have all the platforms they need to improve their network or security. But after some time, Palo Alto Networks changed their licensing, and some of the features that, for example, were free at the beginning now have a cost. I think the integration can be improved. For example, a lot of tools are just integrated through APIs."
"The server sometimes stops continuously to check things so it would be helpful to receive access updates or technical reasons."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by proving hard disk encryption. If it could support this it would be a complete solution."
"It'll help if customization was easier."
"I am facing issues with customer support for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, so I am not satisfied with customer support."
"However, if you do not have Palo Alto in your environment, you are paying these additional services just for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, so it is not a cost-effective solution."
"Dashboards do not allow everyone to see what's happening."
"One thing that was missing was the integration part. Currently, they don't have out-of-box integration with IBM QRadar, or if they have the integration, the integration doesn't work well."
"I would like to see integration with other vendors going forward."
"The product could be improved in blocking malicious traffic, such as communication with known malicious IP addresses."
"They could come up with better reporting capabilities."
"Malwarebytes should improve its mobile compatibility."
"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."
"Every once in a while, the product gets clobbered. It's not just one thing. So, it could be a Microsoft update or a Kaspersky update."
"The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it."
"There's no indication on the system as to when the software is doing a scan."
"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."
"Talking with the tool's technician about any problem is very complicated."
"The solution's AI is notorious for false positives, and the time you have to spend training it is ridiculous."
"Technical support could be faster to respond."
"Defender's threat protection should be fine-tuned to reduce false positives. It could be more targeted, reflecting a continuous evolution in detecting. Also, it could be easier to integrate into other environments."
"The biggest one is that Defender needs to be more proactive to the emerging threats. There can be tighter integration with email, especially how it integrates with our email system, which is the Microsoft Outlook suite. There should be the ability to react a lot quicker to emerging threats because sometimes, it takes a few days before some of these new threats are fully identified, and we need that to be a few hours."
"We face a licensing issue with Windows 11 Enterprise not reflecting in our portal, which affects activation. Microsoft's support did not resolve this issue, even after sharing remote desktop and screen details."
"I am not satisfied with Microsoft's technical support. There are challenges with the knowledge and experience of the support staff, frequent redirection between departments, and slow response times."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a yearly renewal."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"It's the most expensive solution, but features-wise, it's quite strong. It's very good for protection, so the results are very good in the case of protection. I would rate it a two out of ten in terms of pricing."
"The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."
"We expect to pay $1,000 USD a month, depending on the number of users."
"It is really expensive. We've got between 30 and 40 licenses every year, and for the number of licenses that we have, we're finding that Malwarebytes on average costs between $900 and $1,000 more per year than comparable options. We're paying about $3,300 per year for these licenses. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"The price of Malwarebytes is in the middle range compared to other vendors."
"The cost may be something in the ballpark of $20-25 a year per computer."
"I believe the retail price is between $40 and $50 per copy."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the product's pricing a seven."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
"Defender for Business is included by default with an Office 365 premium subscription."
"Since we're a nonprofit, we get pretty good discounts on the tool."
"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."
"The tool's cost has been a little high, but I do not think it was terrible."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business48
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise56
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: September 2026.
916,771 professionals have used our research since 2012.