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Microsoft Sentinel vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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 Sentinel
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (5th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (20th), Threat Deception Platforms (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 8.6%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

KrishnanKartik - PeerSpot reviewer
Every rule enriched at triggering stage, easing the job of SOC analyst
It's a Big Data security analytics platform. Among the unique features is the fact that it has built-in UEBA and analytical capabilities. It allows you to use the out-of-the-box machine learning and AI capabilities, but it also allows you to bring your own AI/ML, by bringing in your own IPs and allowing the platform to accept them and run that on top of it. In addition, the SOAR component is a pay-per-use model. Compared to any other product, where customization is not available, you can fine-tune the SOAR and you'll be charged only when your playbooks are triggered. That is the beauty of the solution because the SOAR is the costliest component in the market today. Other vendors charge heavily for the SOAR, but with Sentinel it is upside-down: the SOAR is the lowest-hanging fruit. It's the least costly and it delivers more value to the customer. The SOAR engine also uniquely helps us to automate most of the incidents with automated enrichment and that cuts out the L1 analyst work. And combining M365 with Sentinel, if you want to call it integration, takes just a few clicks: "next, next finish." If it is all M365-native, it is a maximum of three or four steps and you'll be able to ingest all the logs into Sentinel. That is true even with AWS or GCP because most of the connectors are already available out-of-the-box. You just click, put in your subscription details, include your IAM, and you are finished. Within five to six steps, you can integrate AWS workloads and the logs can be ingested into Sentinel. When it comes to a third party specifically, such as log sources in a data center or on-premises, we need a log collector so that the logs can be forwarded to the Sentinel platform. And when it comes to servers or something where there is an agent for Windows or Linux, the agent can collect the logs and ship them to the Sentinel platform. I don't see any difficulties in integrating any of the log sources, even to the extent of collecting IoT log sources. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has multiple components such as Defender for Servers, Defender for PaaS, and Defender for databases. For customers in Azure, there are a lot of use cases specific to protecting workloads and PaaS and SaaS in Azure and beyond Azure, if a customer also has on-premises locations. There is EDR for Windows and Linux servers, and it even protects different kinds of containers. With Defender for Cloud, all these sources can be seamlessly integrated and you can then track the security incidents in Microsoft's XDR platform. That means you have one more workspace, under Azure, not Defender for Cloud, where you can see the security incidents. In addition, it can be integrated with Sentinel for EDR deep-dive analytics. It can also protect workloads in AWS. We have customers for whom we are protecting their AWS workloads. Even EKS, Elastic Kubernetes Service, on AWS can be integrated, as can the GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine). And with Defender for Cloud, security alert ingestion is free
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

"Previously, it was a little bit difficult to find where an incident came from, including which IP address and which country. So in Sentinel, it's very easy to find where the incident came from since we can easily get the information from the dashboard, after which we take action quickly."
"The dashboard that allows me to view all the incidents is the most valuable feature."
"Sentinel enables us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem. In addition to integrating our Cisco ASA Firewall logs, we get our Palo Alto proxy logs and some on-premises data coming from our hardware devices... That is very important and is one way Sentinel is playing a wider role in our environment."
"We have no complaints about the features or functionality."
"The most valuable feature is the UEBA. It's very easy for a security operations analyst. It has a one-touch analysis where you can search for a particular entity, and you can get a complete overview of that entity or user."
"Log aggregation and data connectors are the most valuable features."
"We are able to deploy within half an hour and we only require one person to complete the implementation."
"I like the unified security console. You can close incidents using Sentinel in all other Microsoft Security portals, when it comes to incident response."
"Great coverage of all systems within our network from endpoint to firewall."
"Dashboards, including the main screen, provide much-needed information at a glance, without hours of coding and sifting through logs to find it. In case of an actual security incident, I have faith that insightIDR has retained all logs in a secure manner that prevents log tampering as well."
"The product works well. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It improved my organization by building a security alerting program."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. As a cloud tool, the product is highly scalable."
"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 application belongs to a known ransomware group. The system rates the threat, offering a clear detection ratio, such as 97 out of 100. It not only identifies threats but also illustrates the associated behaviors, helping us understand the potential risk to a particular endpoint."
"I have seen that Rapid7 InsightIDR provides security to the networks and endpoints in the company."
"It improves because several sensors are deployed within the on-premise environment. It can be very efficient if the customer implements and operates it effectively."
 

Cons

"The only thing is sometimes you can have a false positive."
"The dashboards can be improved. Creating dashboards is very easy, but the visualizations are not as good as Microsoft Power BI. People who are using Microsoft Power BI do not like Sentinel's dashboards."
"Sometimes, it is hard for us to estimate the costs of Microsoft Sentinel."
"Microsoft Defender has a built-in threat expert option that enables you to contact an expert. That feature isn't available in Sentinel because it's a huge product that integrates all the technologies. I would like Microsoft to add the threat expert option so we can contact them. There are a few other features, like threat assessment that the PG team is working on. I expect them to release this feature in the next quarter."
"Improvement-wise, I would like to see more integration with third-party solutions or old-school antivirus products that have some kind of logging capability. I wouldn't mind having that exposed within Sentinel. We do have situations where certain companies have bought licensing or have made an investment in a product, and that product will be there for the next two or three years. To be able to view information from those legacy products would be great. We can then better leverage the Sentinel solution and its capabilities."
"As of now, there have been only benefits. However, I am curious about potential AI integration and whether it will be affordable for us because all the compliance costs are rising with all the new features."
"The on-prem log sources still require a lot of development."
"It could have a better API to be able to automate many things more extensively and get more extensive data and more expensive deployment possibilities. It can gain some points on the automation part and the integration part. The API is very limited, and I would like to see it extended a bit more."
"The APIs can be further improved in Rapid7."
"Inability to get access to compliance reports within the solution."
"I would like the ability to adjust the threshold of certain existing alerts. Currently the only option is to change the notifications or create my own alert."
"The interface for doing investigation needs to be enhanced with minor improvements that would make it more useful."
"Currently, it lacks the functionalities provided by Rapid7's User Behavior Analytics (UBA)."
"Lacks a mobile application."
"They should add more configuration and security features to it."
"The integration capabilities of the solution have certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a cost perspective, there are some additional charges in addition to the licensing."
"We must have saved some money with this product. It is a cloud-native product, and the ingestion is per GB. Every GB costs a certain amount of money. That is how the license of Microsoft Sentinel works."
"The pay-as-you-go model is beneficial to customers."
"The pricing is fair... With a traditional SIEM, you pay a lump sum for licenses. But with Sentinel, it's pay-as-you-go according to the amount of data you inject."
"From a cost perspective, Microsoft Sentinel is quite costly."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be costly, particularly for data management."
"Cost-wise, Sentinel is based on the volume of information being ingested, so it can be quite pricey. The ability to use strategies to control what data is being ingested is important."
"Sentinel is expensive relative to other products of the class, so it often isn't affordable for small-scale businesses. However, considering the solution has more extensive capabilities than others, the price is not so high. Pricing is based on GBs of ingested daily data, either by a pay-as-you-go or subscription model."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is a cheaply priced product. On a scale of one to ten, where one is very expensive, and ten is very cheap, I rate the product's price at seven or eight."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."
"The team is very willing to work with companies. My suggestion is to call the Rapid7 sales department and see how they can help.​"
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"I rate Rapid7 InsightIDR's price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"​I am sure that there are cheaper products out there, but none that meet so many of our needs whilst maintaining stability and usability.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
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

Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
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

Azure Sentinel
InsightIDR
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Sentinel vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.