Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Defender XDR vs WatchGuard EPDR 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
7.3
Microsoft Defender XDR boosts security efficiency, saves time, reduces breaches, despite high licensing costs, enhancing overall organizational security posture.
Sentiment score
7.0
WatchGuard EPDR delivers strong performance, enhancing security and productivity while offering cost-effective, comprehensive threat protection and efficient endpoint management.
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.
Previously, identifying and containing threats took a long time, but now, with Microsoft Defender XDR, it takes just a few minutes.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Defender XDR support excels in premium tiers but has mixed reviews for basic service response times and expertise.
Sentiment score
8.6
WatchGuard EPDR support is valued for excellent technical assistance, effective forums, and reliable service with minimal issues reported.
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 create a case, tell me to refer to articles, and if not resolved, they take a remote session to solve the issue.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable and cloud-based, with positive user feedback, but may face network and licensing challenges.
Sentiment score
8.3
WatchGuard EPDR is scalable, efficiently manages workloads, offers centralized deployment, easy licensing, and robustly supports expanding needs.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender XDR is highly stable and reliable, with users rating it 8 or 9 out of 10.
Sentiment score
8.1
WatchGuard EPDR is praised for its stability, reliable performance, and efficiency in threat management, meeting user expectations consistently.
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 is very stable with no hanging problems.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender XDR needs faster scans, improved integration, intuitive dashboards, cost-effective licensing, better automation, and broader environment support.
WatchGuard EPDR requires competitive pricing, enhanced features, better integration, improved antivirus, and refined web filtering for Latin America.
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.
Other firewalls allow adding categories and in-app controls which WatchGuard currently lacks.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender XDR pricing opinions vary, with some appreciating bundled savings and others finding standalone costs high.
WatchGuard EPDR pricing is seen as justified and competitive, offering value compared to alternatives like Palo Alto XDR.
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.
There are no issues with pricing, but sometimes, the clarity in licensing is a concern.
The pricing is slightly high, but the product quality justifies it.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender XDR offers integrated tools, enhancing threat detection, management, and automation, simplifying security tasks for enterprise environments.
WatchGuard EPDR offers zero-trust security, AI alerts, patch management, and excels in ransomware handling and application-based configurations.
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.
It's because endpoint management is my primary focus, and this feature integrates well with my other skills.
The cloud of WatchGuard lets me see all my devices, updating me to minute levels with detailed information, such as patch status and vulnerabilities.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
WatchGuard EPDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
34th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (43rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 3.3%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard EPDR is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

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.
Phillip Evely - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good reporting features, saves time, and protects endpoints
The setup is very easy. We have deployed the solution on-premise but can also do it on the cloud. It has a cloud functionality. I can push it from the cloud directly to the endpoint, or I can do it via a group policy. The enterprise-wide deployment takes a day. It is very simple. Once the agent is deployed in any subnet, it monitors the network traffic and informs me about endpoints that don't have the agent. I get alerted via a report. If I have a problem, I can manually deploy on those endpoints. The product is set to auto-update. It updates on its own.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions are best for your needs.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Security Firm
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
There is nothing I can think of at the moment that needs improvement. I am a contractor and finishing up soon, so I haven't encountered any issues requiring enhancements.
What do you like most about WatchGuard EPDR?
The product's most valuable features are the zero-trust application service and its capability to detect threats and attacks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WatchGuard EPDR?
The pricing is slightly high, but the product quality justifies it. The price is fair, neither too high nor too low. Considering all its features, an increase in price would be justifiable.
What needs improvement with WatchGuard EPDR?
I have not found anything requiring improvement. However, overall, the category level should be enhanced. The categories in the web filtering should be more comprehensive. When a URL is not categor...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender XDR vs. WatchGuard EPDR and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.