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Microsoft Defender XDR vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

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

Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
20th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (9th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Threat Deception Platforms (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Gabor Nyerd - PeerSpot reviewer
Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot
We found that sometimes integrations work, but testing them can take some time. Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected. We have a configuration in place that needs to be synchronized with another server. However, the servers are four hours apart, so this can cause delays. In general, I believe that the time it takes to configure and test a service should be shorter. Sometimes, it can take a couple of hours to test a single configuration setting. Other times, it is only ten or fifteen minutes, which is normal. However, sometimes, even immediate actions can be triggered by configuration changes, and some settings can take up to eight hours to complete. I believe that this time can be improved. Microsoft is making a lot of improvements to its services in a short period of time. This is a good thing, as it means that the services are constantly being updated and improved. However, it can be challenging for customers to keep up with the changes. For example, a customer may read about an update, understand it, and share it with their colleagues and boss. However, it may take days or weeks to test the update and get the necessary approvals. This can be especially challenging for large customers with many users or machines. In some cases, Microsoft may change a service before the customer has had a chance to implement the previous update. This can be frustrating for customers, as it means that they have to constantly learn new things and adjust their workflows. On the one hand, it is important for Microsoft to keep updating and improving its services. This helps to ensure that the services are meeting the customers' needs and that they are staying ahead of the competition. Microsoft should also be mindful of the challenges that these changes can create for customers. One way to address this challenge is to provide customers with more time to implement changes. Microsoft could also provide more information about upcoming changes so that customers can plan ahead. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to strike a balance between keeping its services up-to-date and providing customers with a smooth transition to new features.
Prasanth Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers capabilities in areas like threat intelligence and vulnerability management but needs to improve support
The most valuable feature of the product for managing security events stems from the fact that the product's intelligence part is very good since it offers its own threat intelligence and vulnerability management platform. The tool also has its own cloud security posture management platform. The tool also is a dynamic application security testing platform. The aforementioned tools fall under Rapid7 InsightIDR's kitty. The intelligence and the data that Rapid7 gathers from customers across the globe enrich the quality of its detection capabilities. All other tools in the market depend on third-party solutions for intelligence. Rapid7 InsightIDr has the intelligence part natively available within the product, giving it a good edge over other vendors.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like Defender XDR's reports and alerts. They give you updates about the latest hotfixes and zero-day vulnerabilities, which gives me all the information I need to maintain my servers."
"Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise."
"Defender XDR enables you to scan a system remotely and get a complete inventory of its assets. You can gather more information from the asset inventory and apply threat intelligence using Office 365 or something."
"The integration, visibility, vulnerability management, and device identification are valuable."
"Many people don't realize that Microsoft Azure, Exchange Online, and the security and compliance portal all sync together. For instance, within the Azure portal you can set security restrictions and policies to help secure your tenants... The good part of it is that these products have already been integrated. When you sign on as an admin you have global admin rights and that gives you access to all these features."
"Advanced hunting is good. I like that. We can drill down to lots of details."
"Having a single pane of glass for all Microsoft security services makes everything much easier. A security analyst can go to a single portal and see everything in one view. The integration of everything into one portal is a huge benefit."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft 365 Defender are the combination of all the capabilities and centralized management."
"The alerting to drive investigations and remediation has been its most valuable feature.​"
"The solution is very stable and works very well for what I need it to do."
"I am able to run automated actions based on the output of reports, leaving me extra time to focus on more pressing matters."
"It improved my organization by building a security alerting program."
"Rapid7 is easy to use and deploy. It is a simple solution and has easy data pulling."
"The solution's initial setup is easy."
"Log search allows us to dive deep into aggregated logs and query all event types at once.​"
"Integration with threat modeling from the Metasploit and InsightIDR repositories."
 

Cons

"One of the biggest downsides of Microsoft products, in general, is that the menus are often difficult to find, as they tend to move from place to place between versions."
"Offboarding latency should be reduced. Even after a device has been successfully offboarded using a particular offboarding script, it still shows up as onboarded."
"Since all of our databases are updated and located in the cloud, I would like additional support for this."
"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."
"There are other SIEM solutions that are easier to use, mainly based on the creation of rules, use cases, and groups."
"Advanced attacks could use an improvement."
"Microsoft tends to provide too many features, which makes the solution prone to bugs."
"Microsoft support is not very good. You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain."
"The solution needs improvement in threat intelligence. Increasing the depth of intelligence to help users understand more about threats is a possibility. My suggestion is to expand access to other websites or resources."
"The integration capabilities of the solution have certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"It would be useful to import threat intelligence in YARA format along with known incorrect email addresses.​"
"Inability to get access to compliance reports within the solution."
"Cloud risk assessment is one area where I think they need a lot of improvement."
"I would like to see more development in InsightIDR towards building their SIEM solution and converting it to XDR."
"The solution's XDR agents cannot compete with the XDR solutions out there yet."
"The APIs can be further improved in Rapid7."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solutions price is fair for what they offer."
"It is fairly priced because we get complete integrated services with the E5 license."
"While Microsoft Defender XDR carries a higher cost, its ease of use compared to Defender may justify the investment."
"It is 15 dollars per server per month. It is worth it, but it can be costly. It depends on the company's size."
"Defender plan 1 is tenant-wise, and Defender plan 2 is per-user, which makes it more expensive. To have certain features, you would need to purchase the E5 license. For all of the capabilities that the tool provides, the price, though it can be high, is fair."
"The price could be better. Normally, the costs depend on the country you're located in for the license. When we were in the initial stage, we went with the E5 license they call premium standard. It cost us around $5.20 per month for four users."
"365 Defender can get expensive because you pay per gigabyte of data ingested. On the other hand, much of the data available in the other Microsoft security solutions are made available relatively cheaply—sometimes at cost or for free. Integrating only a limited set of third-party solutions with Sentinel would be cost-effective. It's much more affordable if companies only have Microsoft stuff."
"We've managed to navigate it effectively through our enterprise agreement, and Microsoft's academic discounts have proven to be quite generous."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable."
"The team is very willing to work with companies. My suggestion is to call the Rapid7 sales department and see how they can help.​"
"Licensing is by endpoint and amount of retention time (at least ours is). Default retention was one year, but we are able to push the retention further if needed. There's also a provide-your-own-S3 option for longer retention if you don't want to pay for the additional retention years in your Rapid7 agreement."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is priced very well and is cost-effective."
"The pricing is good, and it is not very expensive."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable but we have challenges with the Minimum Order Quantity. It is not reasonable for customers who have less than one hundred devices. If they can reduce Minimum Order Quantity, it is good. You have to pay around 5000-6000 dollars per year for the product. The pricing includes maintenance and support costs."
"It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."
"Licensing is straightforward. If, for some reason, you don’t meet the minimum licensing requirements, there is a third-party managed service that can help."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
Licensing is somewhat confusing, particularly when presenting our pitch decks to stakeholders and leveraging key features in premium SKUs, but we managed with some assistance from Microsoft.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
It would be beneficial to reduce the number of clicks required to navigate between blades, as the current navigation and breadcrumb system can be a bit confusing. Some inconsistencies exist between...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What do you like most about Rapid7 InsightIDR?
During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an applicati...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
InsightIDR
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender XDR vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.