No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Malwarebytes Teams vs Microsoft Defender for Business comparison

Sponsored
 

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
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Malwarebytes Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
25th
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 August 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Malwarebytes Teams is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 1.4%, 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 Networks3.9%
Microsoft Defender for Business1.4%
Malwarebytes Teams1.6%
Other93.1%
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

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks has helped us a lot with securing the whole environment and the whole IT structure, giving us full knowledge of what is happening on the client and enabling us to take action right away from a single point for managing security operations on the hosts."
"Its ability to react to cyber data attacks is awesome."
"But overall, when we speak about security and protection, they are one of the top providers."
"My advice for anybody who is considering Cortex XDR is that it is a complete solution, and has very good features."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"One of the things that I enjoy the most is using policy extensions. It's like having host firewalls to control USB connections. I think it's a wonderful tool to restrict use when connecting to our computers. Another important tool is Home Insights. That is an add-on to the Cortex solution. I like that because we can see all the vulnerabilities in the environment and control what assets are connected to our network."
"The most valuable features are incident creation, policy-based protection, IP whitelisting, and device encryption. These are beneficial for endpoint and server security."
"The good thing about the product is that it's always scanning."
"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."
"I like the solution's ability to detect potentially unwanted programs. For some reason, it seems superior to other solutions, or at least in comparison to McAfee."
"I never have to look at it or do anything with it, and then my system just stays clean."
"The dashboard actually is good and it is simple."
"It prevents us from having to re-image computers if they are found to be harboring malware."
"The solution has helped to increase staff productivity by ten percent."
"I was very satisfied with Malwarebytes in terms of its antivirus abilities."
"Considering the overall management of the system and seeing what is being protected, it is doing a great job."
"If you're an Intune user, you can bring in certain capabilities like system-hardening policies, which further enhances the security."
"The solution is effective, continuously improving, and highly regarded, especially with Microsoft's leadership in the industry."
"Using Microsoft Defender for Business is beneficial for my company."
"Defender's main strength is its integration with Microsoft Sentinel, offering valuable insights."
"The most effective features of Microsoft Defender for Business include its threat detection and response capabilities in managing vulnerabilities and ransomware attacks."
"Microsoft Defender for Business works well with the Microsoft Azure Security ecosystem, including Defender for Endpoint and Office 365 Cloud."
"I haven't had any problems with the tool's stability."
"Everything is stable. There have been no technical errors or stability issues."
 

Cons

"A little bit more automation would be nice."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management. It would be useful to look at the client's issue to fix it."
"This product has not improved my organization - in fact, we are in the process of moving back to another product as a result of Cortex's horrible impact on system performance."
"Product might have some bugs."
"When it comes to malware files, it should be a little quick because, at times, it would give a wrong result in the sense of what it might be on malware, even if it still might be a normal one."
"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 is an enterprise-level solution. Its price could be less expensive."
"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around."
"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."
"We experience a lot of false positives."
"The product has major problems in almost every facet of setup and use including setup, configuration, lack of functionality, lack of stability, false positives, questionable reporting, inability to protect from randsomeware and poor technical support and development."
"The product's stability needs improvement."
"Its price can also be improved. It is really expensive."
"It's not covering everything as we just started in EDR. In Malwarebytes, there's no response. The response is very limited, and integration is very limited."
"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 reporting is not as flexible as you would find with other antivirus software."
"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."
"The threat detection capabilities require significant customization for multistage threat detection."
"Additionally, the pricing policy poses a challenge, particularly in multi-year contracts, where other solutions like Trend Micro offer more affordable options."
"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."
"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."
"Threat protection could be improved even though it is already a built-in feature."
"The solution's AI is notorious for false positives, and the time you have to spend training it is ridiculous."
"Microsoft should provide batch management solutions with the application, integrating pass management with roles."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."
"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"The price was fine."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"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 platform pricing is competitive with other antivirus products."
"Its cost is around $60 a machine. The cost of the total solution for 250 people is about $8,500 a year. If we add EDR to it, it will bring that cost up to about $15,000. The cost for Carbon Black is about $25,000, which is $10,000 more, but you get all AI functions with it."
"It is expensive."
"I would say that it's affordable. It costs much less than Sentinel One, CrowdStrike, or anything of that nature. But, at the same time, you are getting what you pay for. So I would say it's one of the best when you're comparing traditional NextGen AVs like Webroot that aren't the best in the bunch."
"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."
"We expect to pay $1,000 USD a month, depending on the number of users."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"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's cost has been a little high, but I do not think it was terrible."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are best for your needs.
910,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
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: August 2026.
910,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.