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Microsoft Defender XDR vs SentinelOne Singularity Complete 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Defender XDR provides high ROI by consolidating security tools, streamlining operations, and enhancing security, despite licensing costs.
Sentiment score
7.4
SentinelOne Singularity Complete enhances security, efficiency, and savings by integrating functions, reducing response times, and decreasing labor costs.
We can quarantine and isolate a device within minutes.
Microsoft Defender XDR has saved me at least 50% of my time.
Ever since we turned on the M5 feature set back in June, we have seen a reduced number of potentially malicious clicks and faster alerting when incidents occur.
Since then, I have not faced any intrusions, which is one reason I chose SentinelOne over ESET.
We have not faced any attacks since we implemented it.
It has absolutely helped reduce our organizational risk.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Defender XDR's support is timely and responsive, yet smaller organizations experience slower, less effective assistance than larger ones.
Sentiment score
7.2
SentinelOne receives praise for efficient support but faces criticism for slow responses during critical issues and limited interactive options.
You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.
It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.
Once issues are escalated to the second or third layer, the support is much better.
They do a great job of figuring out the problem and pointing you to generic documentation or working with you to fine-tune a solution.
We are using the automated email process for support, and they respond within an hour or two hours sometimes.
A chat service would be beneficial.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender XDR scales well for various organizations, efficiently supporting growth and flexibility despite some network deployment challenges.
Sentiment score
8.0
SentinelOne Singularity Complete is scalable, adaptable, and integrates seamlessly, efficiently managing thousands of endpoints across diverse infrastructures.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
Microsoft Defender XDR scales pretty well.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
It's all auto-scale and auto-categorized, configuring automatically.
The tool's built-in automation for deploying the agents works well for large infrastructures like mine.
SentinelOne Singularity Complete is very scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender XDR is praised for high stability, reliable performance, minimal issues, frequent updates, and prompt issue resolution.
Sentiment score
7.8
SentinelOne Singularity Complete is reliable with minimal outages, strong performance, and minor issues, excelling in agent management.
The service has remained consistently online, with any issues isolated to specific components, suggesting a well-designed and modular architecture.
The services within our ecosystem have been reliable, meeting their SLAs.
It provides high-fidelity signals.
It has caused problems with interoperability between third-party tools, which could lead to entire servers crashing or specific tools failing.
This indicates room for improvement in stability when interacting with other solutions.
Initially, there were issues, particularly on the management side, but now the console is much more stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender XDR requires enhancements in speed, integration, automation, AI, ease-of-use, and industry-specific threat intelligence.
Users seek improvements in SentinelOne, including UI, integration, pricing, support, automation, resource management, and communication on upgrades.
The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.
Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.
Some inconsistencies exist between blades, which could be improved for a more seamless user and UI experience.
The only thing that prevented the attack from succeeding was a free version of Malwarebytes.
Providing a single pane of visibility for the end user would be beneficial.
It's challenging to prevent a user from manipulating their privileges or someone else's of others, and it's difficult to control what users can access at the organizational level.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender XDR pricing is seen as complex but fair, with high costs alleviated in bundled Microsoft 365 packages.
SentinelOne Singularity Complete offers competitive pricing with discounts, appealing for large deployments due to its comprehensive security features.
There are certainly savings when using Microsoft Defender XDR, which can range from 30%, 40%, and even up to 50%.
I would rate the pricing as eight out of ten, indicating it is a reasonable cost for the product.
Microsoft purposefully obfuscates this through marketing ploys to hide costs.
If you want protection, you have to pay the price.
There are other products that are less expensive, but I tell my clients that in security, they cannot cut corners or look for the cheapest solution.
Reputation and quality are important, but especially in today’s economy, price is a significant factor.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender XDR integrates tools for comprehensive security, offering threat detection, automation, identity protection, and enhanced efficiency.
SentinelOne Singularity Complete provides autonomous threat detection, rollback capabilities, and deep visibility for enhanced cybersecurity and endpoint control.
With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.
This allows us to secure our systems in advance and proactively improve security, rather than waiting for incidents to occur.
Once we have it on the security dashboard, we can see a real-time storyline.
I have an advanced app providing visibility of all my endpoints, which was not the case before.
SentinelOne has a feature to decommission automatically, which has been fantastic.
There's also automation that gives my team free time, preventing them from having to look for every alert.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (5th)
SentinelOne Singularity Com...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
2nd
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
202
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (3rd), Anti-Malware Tools (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 2.8%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Complete is 5.6%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SentinelOne Singularity Complete5.6%
Microsoft Defender XDR2.8%
Other91.6%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

MohtesanShaikh - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience improves security management and simplifies threat protection
I have created automated investigations, and while they work, they operate rather slowly in the Microsoft portal. If I automate something, it takes considerable time; if I do it manually, I can complete it in a quarter of the time. The automation response being slow is the main concern; when an incident occurs or if I run a remediation, it takes significant time to complete the remediation. There are some limitations regarding the scalability of Microsoft Defender XDR with specific licensing. For SMB customers, there is only Microsoft Defender for Business, and if they want more features such as XDR features and automation investigation or incident response, they need to purchase Defender for Endpoint. We are currently using the EDR.
Daniel Giacomelli - PeerSpot reviewer
Strengthens cross-platform threat response while supporting audit compliance and log integration
The analytics and reporting can be a bit overwhelming. I love the dashboards, but I find that I need to better understand PowerQuery—specifically when to turn it on and off and its limitations. It's similar to SharePoint in that regard. As a former SharePoint instructor, I know it like the back of my hand. The best thing about SharePoint is that it can do whatever you want; the worst part is also that it can do whatever you want. You really need to know what you want before diving in. Most people usually have a good idea of what they need. SharePoint offers a lot out of the box, but you can customize it further if you wish. However, customization often requires hiring someone, which can be risky since you never know if it will work as intended. On the other hand, PowerQuery can help bridge some of those gaps within Singularity. The challenge arises when you want to incorporate what you've done into dashboards and charts, as there are limitations. For instance, I want more clickable drill-down options that allow me to filter on specific sections of the data, but that's currently not possible. It’s not to say that improvements won’t come in the future; it's just that it feels a bit early at this stage. Additionally, I find some navigation features frustrating, like the back button in certain contexts. For example, if you open PowerQuery from a chart, it doesn't open in a new window or tab. Clicking the back button takes you all the way back to the previous state, causing you to lose whatever progress you made. However, I'm actively providing this feedback to my partner, Pro Circular, through whom we access SentinelOne. They take our input seriously, and I've been sharing my observations. They have their own views but are addressing the issues I raise. It's good to see that suggestions occasionally lead to updates and improvements.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise37
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise77
 

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?
The pricing for Microsoft Sentinel operates on a pay-as-you-go model based on data ingestion. I recall that Defender XDR pricing is based on the number of endpoints.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
I have created automated investigations, and while they work, they operate rather slowly in the Microsoft portal. If I automate something, it takes considerable time; if I do it manually, I can com...
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. The ability to reverse damage caused by ransomware with minimal interruptions to...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
Sentinel Labs, SentinelOne Singularity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Havas, Flex, Estee Lauder, McKesson, Norfolk Southern, JetBlue, Norwegian airlines, TGI Friday, AVX, Fim Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender XDR vs. SentinelOne Singularity Complete and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,922 professionals have used our research since 2012.