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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

"The ability to kind of stitch everything together and see the actual complete picture is very useful. I guess you'd call it a playbook. Some people call it the forensics analysis of what was happening on particular endpoints when they detected some malicious behavior, and what transpired before that to cause that. It is also very user friendly. The way they have done everything and integrated all the solutions that they've purchased over the years to make it a very seamless, effective product is very good. One thing about Palo Alto is that they take the products or services that they purchase and make them seamless for the end user as compared to some companies that purchase other companies and then just kind of have their products off to the side or keep different interfaces. Palo Alto doesn't do that."
"The initial setup isn't too bad."
"Technical support is the best in class, in my opinion, because they have invested heavily in research and development."
"Cortex XDR's most valuable feature is its intelligence-based dashboards."
"It is an easy-to-use tool."
"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."
"Palo Alto Networks Traps improves our security posture and lowers risk by providing next-gen methods to combat against modern threats on all the major platforms."
"We have found in our test Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks to be a very good tool."
"The solution is very good at scanning; it's a good product, it does the job, it offers good protection, and I haven't come across any issues so far which I need to escalate."
"I commonly recommend Malwarebytes to people due to the fact that I find it quite reliable."
"Provides successful ransomware shut down operations."
"The most valuable features of Malwarebytes are the EDR and the complete feature set provided."
"We don't have to spend any time remediating bad things happening: Not viruses nor ransomware."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that I can use it wherever I want, be it at the office, at home, or even outside."
"It gets the job done, and they are consistently updating it monthly."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to customize for different groups."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Business works well with the Microsoft Azure Security ecosystem, including Defender for Endpoint and Office 365 Cloud."
"The solution is effective, continuously improving, and highly regarded, especially with Microsoft's leadership in the industry."
"The security features in Microsoft Defender for Business that have been most effective for our company include the way it's built-in and intertwined into all the operating systems, giving us a good opportunity to holistically block things for the organization using that tenant."
"The solution provides good scalability."
"The solution includes attack-savvy service and risk protection, part of data center management, and offers an effective single-dashboard view with Microsoft 365."
"The interface is quite user-friendly."
 

Cons

"If they had pulse rate detection, it would be better."
"In reporting they should have a customizable dashboard due to the fact that C-level people don't like reporting to the IT department. They prefer to have a real-time dashboard. That kind of dashboard needs to have various customizations."
"As an improvement, I would like to see enhanced connection speeds."
"Cortex does not offer an on-premises solution. However, some customers would prefer not to be on the cloud. It would be ideal if it could offer something on-prem as well."
"They are charging for Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) services, so if the per GB data could be provided at a certain level free of cost or at the same cost which the customer is taking for the entire bundle, that would be better."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a very good product, but financially, it is very expensive, so the company should look into that area."
"The connection to the internet has not performed as expected."
"The MAC agent is not as robust feature-wise as the PC version."
"We experience a lot of false positives."
"Malwarebytes should improve its mobile compatibility."
"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 online reporting needs to be improved. Currently, we have to look at it online, and if we want to download a report, it just downloads as an Excel file. It's just raw information. There needs to be some way to better display it when it's downloaded."
"Even though we're satisfied with the product, we don't like the bait-and-switch pricing style."
"The stability and performance of the solution are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."
"The product update capability needs to be improved."
"If they want to compete with bigger players, they should consider adding items like threat detection and website warnings."
"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."
"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."
"We faced some issues while running some applications on Mac."
"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."
"Defender's reporting is rather scattered, and its URL filtering mechanism doesn't really work."
"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 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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"Very costly product."
"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."
"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is on a yearly-basis."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"The price of Malwarebytes is in the middle range compared to other vendors."
"Malwarebytes is a cost-effective product."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing 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.
915,817 professionals have used our research since 2012.