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TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Real User
May 2, 2024
Is stable, scalable, and protects against ransomware
Pros and Cons
  • "Email protection is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender XDR."
  • "The price should be adjustable by region."

What is our primary use case?

We use Microsoft Defender XDR for our Microsoft 365 email service.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps protect us against ransomware. We were a victim of a malware attack in 2018 before implementation.

What is most valuable?

Email protection is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender XDR.

What needs improvement?

The price has room for improvement. The price should be adjustable by region.

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Defender XDR
August 2026
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Defender XDR. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2026.
912,022 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Defender XDR for almost 5 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Microsoft Defender XDR is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Microsoft Defender XDR is priced high.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR 8 out of 10.

No maintenance is required from our end because it updates with the OS.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Sear Mahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst II at COMMTEL
Real User
Mar 19, 2024
It lets us prioritize threats and automate responses, but the threat intelligence could be better
Pros and Cons
  • "I like Defender XDR's automation capabilities. XDR isn't automated by default, but you can automate it to respond. If an attack is performed anywhere within the organization, you can isolate that instance from the network. This is what I can figure out for it. When integrated with Sentinel, you can set up playbooks to automate all the alerts gathered on Sentinel from different Microsoft solutions. Sentinel has a wider range of capabilities than XDR."
  • "When we do investigations, it would be better if Microsoft could populate the host dashboard more. When we open any host for investigation, we want the entire timeline of what is happening on the host, including all the users logging in, their hardware, Windows version, etc."

What is our primary use case?

We typically use Defender's default settings and are implementing MITRE ATT&CK use cases on Microsoft Defender this year. We do manual threat hunting and check to see if there is a trending attack. We have the latest IOCs and sweep across the organization looking for them. 

When implementing Defender, we usually use its advanced hunting features to determine particular techniques used across the whole environment. We use multiple Microsoft security products, including Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Cloud Apps, Sentinel, email and collaboration, data loss prevention, and Microsoft Purview.

How has it helped my organization?

Defender XDR enables us to prioritize threats according to the algorithm or our custom rules. We can prioritize threats and have the option to automate the response. For instance, let's say we are facing a sticky key hijack. When you press shift several times at the login screen, you can open the command prompt of that particular host. That is a vulnerability of Microsoft Windows. When this happens, we can automate a priority alert and also isolate that endpoint from the network immediately. 

The solution reduces our remediation time by enabling our security analyst to respond quickly, make some automations, and edit the rules to detect any potential threats. The extent to which the solution reduces the remediation time depends on the analyst's skill. If the security analyst is good, Defender XDR will help them.

XDR saves money if you are using Microsoft products. XDR is more inclined toward Active Directory, a Microsoft product. No other XDR can integrate with Active Directory so seamlessly and use it to its fullest potential. Microsoft also offers multiple sub-products. If we purchased third-party solutions for email, endpoint, XDR, cloud applications, etc., and managed them on a single platform, it would be more expensive than Microsoft solutions. When we do a cost-benefit analysis, Microsoft Defender XDR offers a better value. 

What is most valuable?

I like Defender XDR's automation capabilities. XDR isn't automated by default, but you can automate it to respond. If an attack is performed anywhere within the organization, you can isolate that instance from the network. This is what I can figure out for it. When integrated with Sentinel, you can set up playbooks to automate all the alerts gathered on Sentinel from different Microsoft solutions. Sentinel has a wider range of capabilities than XDR. 

What needs improvement?

Defender XDR has good threat visibility, but it could be better in some areas, like when we are hunting for a specific host. For example, let's say we are investigating email services, and want to trace an email account to its host PCs and investigate the emails in its inbox. We want more visibility into the email side of investigations. It would be better if these features could be more integrated into the console like you could have a tab for Cloud Apps to see the cloud applications a user had communicated with. 

Microsoft's threat analytics are somewhat helpful for anything related to Microsoft products. For instance, it can update us about any single sign-on vulnerabilities or something along those lines. However, Microsoft was very late in terms of the recent LockBit attacks. LockBit compromised some significant organizations, and Microsoft didn't provide the report fast enough. It was reported on my normal cybersecurity information websites first. The site analytics are a bit weak when it comes to non-Microsoft clouds.

Defender XDR is capable of providing intelligence reports about threats specific to Microsoft components, but if we are implementing a Microsoft solution across an organization, many other products and side factors must be considered. I feel like Microsoft falls behind some other vendors in threat intelligence.

When we do investigations, it would be better if Microsoft could populate the host dashboard more. When we open any host for investigation, we want the entire timeline of what is happening on the host, including all the users logging in, their hardware, Windows version, etc. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Defender XDR for nearly 2 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't faced issues with stability. XDR doesn't lag during investigations. We've seen a few minor bugs in the XDR console but not often. There have been no major issues that disrupted our operation. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Defender XDR has good scalability. If you want more endpoint visibility, you don't need to scale your organization much. You only need to integrate that particular endpoint by running a script and deploying an agent to it. 

How are customer service and support?

I haven't contacted Microsoft support about XDR, but my client has. One of the alerts was triggering incorrectly based on a default setting. We asked their team to investigate why the solution was excessively triggering. I just disabled the default rules and made custom policies. Now, everything is working fine.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I previously used CrowdStrike EDR. It's hard to compare the two products because CrowdStrike EDR was focused on endpoint detection, so it cannot investigate emails or have any other XDR capabilities. One is an XDR and the other an EDR. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We compared Microsoft Defender XDR to Trend Micro's Vision One. Defender's advantage over Vision One is ease of use. Managing and enabling policies is much easier on Microsoft Defender. There's a considerable difference between their default rules. In some cases, alerts will trigger in Defender, but not Vision One. Overall, Microsoft Defender XDR is preferable over Vision One.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Microsoft Defender XDR 7 out of 10. It's a useful product for a professional security analyst who knows how to increase the visibility. You only need to make some front-end changes and put the data on host names into XDR. 

If someone asked me whether a best-of-breed or single-vendor approach is better, I would support mixing different products. Each security vendor has its own intelligence base. By including other vendors, I am gaining visibility into more indicators of compromise. Nevertheless, I would still pick Microsoft Defender XDR and Sentinel together because they are well integrated. All the big companies and banks use Microsoft. Windows is a popular operating system across the world. Defender and Sentinel are better integrated with Microsoft systems. 

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Defender XDR
August 2026
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Defender XDR. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2026.
912,022 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sitecore Team Lead at a retailer with 11-50 employees
Reseller
Mar 19, 2024
It isn't customizable enough and not all of the solutions are fully integrated
Pros and Cons
  • "My clients like Defender's file integrity monitoring. They're monitoring Windows and Linux system files."
  • "My client would like the solution to be more customizable without using code. You can only build on the default console, but we're not allowed to change it."

What is our primary use case?

One of my largest customers deployed Defender for Endpoint, but they also wanted Defender XDR to get a specific feature. Defender XDR is included in the E5 license, but it's a bit too expensive. Our customer wanted Defender XDR's file integrity monitor tools for compliance. My client is using Defender with Sentinel, but I'm unsure how much they use it. 

What is most valuable?

My clients like Defender's file integrity monitoring. They're monitoring Windows and Linux system files.

What needs improvement?

My client would like the solution to be more customizable without using code. You can only build on the default console, but we're not allowed to change it. 

We have a similar tool to Defender's file integrity monitoring. Under the VMware VM properties, there is a change-checking tool, and it will tell us if the extension is in a different location. You can configure checking and do the monitoring. When I log into Defender's file integrity portal, I cannot see that this machine was enabled.  It's the same agent and extension. 

It's confusing because I don't know how to tell the customer they don't need to pay $15 per month because you already can enable the extension in VMware. Under the Defender account, it all seems like it's high code, and we cannot change it. Every customer has requirements for us to customize those things. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Defender XDR for about a year. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Defender XDR is an enterprise-scale solution. 

How are customer service and support?

I rate Microsoft support 4 out of 10. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

What other advice do I have?

I rate Defender XDR 3 out of 10. I don't think Defender XDR is ready to deploy in its current state. It has too many solutions inside, and they're not fully integrated. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner/reseller
PeerSpot user
reviewer2315670 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Manager at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Dec 20, 2023
Efficient protection against emerging cyber threats providing unified threat detection, incident response, and significant cost savings while streamlining operations
Pros and Cons
  • "The incident threat response and its ability to facilitate effective remediation against threats are the standout features."
  • "Stability could be improved by avoiding frequent changes to the interface."

What is our primary use case?

It is an integral part of our security infrastructure, primarily serving to monitor both our server and client environments comprehensively.

How has it helped my organization?

Its strength lies in providing a holistic view of the protection it offers. When a threat is detected, the system not only identifies the nature of the threat but also provides valuable insights into how and why it was detected. This thorough understanding empowers us to take well-informed steps to remediate the threat effectively. The unified Microsoft environment enhances overall ease of use, making it considerably simpler for our team members to collaborate and work efficiently, given our familiarity with Microsoft products. Unified identity and access benefits stand out as crucial, especially as we delve deeper into compliance considerations. The increasing importance lies in having a centralized view, streamlining visibility through a single interface rather than navigating across various sections in Defender.

What is most valuable?

The incident threat response and its ability to facilitate effective remediation against threats are the standout features. I haven't encountered a similar level of comprehensive incident response in other solutions before.

What needs improvement?

Perhaps there's room for visual enhancements to make the platform more appealing. Stability could be improved by avoiding frequent changes to the interface.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with it for approximately a year.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It has proven to be scalable within our organization, which, while not exceptionally large, consists of around eight hundred users globally. It strikes a balance, meeting our needs effectively without being overly complex.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is generally good, but we sometimes find the first-line support process a bit cumbersome. After initiating a case, we, as experienced professionals, go through the standard script diligently (ABC), only to find that first-level support requests the same steps again. While I understand the need for thorough troubleshooting before escalation, it can be time-consuming. I would rate it six out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Compared to antivirus or security products such as Trend Micro or McAfee, Microsoft Defender XDR appears notably more user-friendly and offers a clearer interface. The adoption of Microsoft Defender allowed us to phase out the use of other security products, including our long-standing reliance on McAfee and Trend Micro. The transition was prompted by the effectiveness of Advanced Threat Protection offered through Microsoft Defender 365. The decision to consolidate under Microsoft's umbrella proved advantageous, making the adoption process smoother and more efficient for our organization.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup wasn't overly complicated. We only needed to create a few scripts, which were then executed on our local machines within the environment. This process seamlessly integrated the machines into Defender within our tenant.

What about the implementation team?

We use a third-party software tool for executing scripts and deploying software packages.

What was our ROI?

We've achieved significant cost savings, primarily in the realm of security. As Microsoft continues to enhance Defender, we anticipate further opportunities to streamline and consolidate various aspects of security monitoring and software under the Microsoft umbrella. I'd estimate the savings to be in the tens of thousands of dollars annually.Considering our relatively small team of around thirty IT professionals, especially those at the first level primarily using security products like Defender, the streamlined access within the same application prevents them from having to navigate through multiple applications. This efficiency translates to a potential saving of around a dozen hours per month per individual.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Understanding the subscription model has been a bit challenging, as every feature or requirement comes with an additional cost.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Axel Viloria - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at a non-profit with 201-500 employees
Real User
Apr 21, 2023
Automatically helps mitigate attacks that could expand across our organization
Pros and Cons
  • "The visibility into threats is also very impressive because Microsoft helps you predict things and provides analytics to help you really improve your security. And all of this technology works across the domain, so it is pretty helpful in terms of threat analytics."
  • "Intrusion detection and prevention would be great to have with 365 Defender."

What is our primary use case?

I've been using it for endpoints and for Microsoft 365, along with Microsoft Defender for Identity. I use it to create policies for anti-spam, anti-malware, anti-phishing, as well as safe links.

I also use it for the security score, making sure that our company achieves a good security score across the organization.

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped us increase our rules and policies, protecting our users, information, and data.

When I deploy a policy for anti-spam or anti-phishing, the solution automatically helps us mitigate those kinds of attacks that could expand across the organization. The automation stops those attacks and emails and sends the emails to a secure place where the admins can accept or eliminate them.

It has also eliminated having to look at multiple dashboards, which not only makes things easier, but helps us detect, and see for ourselves, the threats that are happening across the organization.

In addition, the threat intelligence helps prepare us for potential threats, providing us with security steps to take based on what other experts have done, the steps and recommendations, to prevent those threats. It collects information from the website that Microsoft has where security experts provide information.

And with our endpoints, it has helped us save time because, before we installed Microsoft 365 Defender, we had an antivirus solution that took our time. In addition, by using Defender for Identity, we have been saving time with the password self-reset, because we no longer need IT members or administrators to help reset users' passwords. They can do it by themselves. And with Microsoft Defender for Cloud, we're no longer installing the software on their computers, so there are time-savings as a result.

And one of the greatest characteristics of 365 Defender is that it natively helps you coordinate, detect, and prevent threats, and it provides investigations across the organization's domain. And with the responses across the endpoints and various resources in the cloud, it has many sophisticated solutions integrated to protect against cyberattacks. It has absolutely helped us to save money because it is just one solution, rather than paying for multiple services at the same time.

What is most valuable?

The security score and the threat intelligence are really good features. I also like the Exchange message trace.

The visibility into threats is also very impressive because Microsoft helps you predict things and provides analytics to help you really improve your security. And all of this technology works across the domain, so it is pretty helpful in terms of threat analytics. It immediately detects and tells you what you can do, with recommendations.

The solution also indicates threats as high, medium, or low priority. When the priority is high, that is when I put all of my effort and knowledge into it, and focus on it, because it is valuable for the enterprise.

We also use the solution's role-based access control across the organization. Because, as a company, we work remotely, we make sure that our users have access to what they need and we better protect our company from intruders and cyberattacks.

What needs improvement?

Intrusion detection and prevention would be great to have with 365 Defender.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Microsoft 365 Defender for nearly a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has been great so far.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable. That's one of the benefits of the cloud. You can scale or downsize it whenever you want.

We have many locations and departments around the world. I'm located in the Dominican Republic, but there are people in Europe and the United States.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support is great because they mostly provide responses in less than 24 hours.

We were facing downtime with our Outlook email, and they told us what was happening with our data center. After they responded to us, we provided the information to the head administrators. After two hours, they restored our services.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What other advice do I have?

The solution doesn't require any maintenance, as far as I have seen.

Between a single- and a multi-vendor security solution, it depends on whether you are using multiple technologies. Microsoft solutions are pretty much integrated, and help you with the pre- and post-breach. If you are using Microsoft, I would absolutely recommend Microsoft 365 Defender. But if not, I would recommend something else because, with just Microsoft, you probably would not be getting the best solution. There would probably be latency.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2024007 - PeerSpot reviewer
OT Security Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Dec 19, 2022
User-friendly portal, good advanced hunting capabilities, and great for analysis
Pros and Cons
  • "Within advanced threat hunting, the tables that have already been defined by Microsoft are helpful. In the advanced threat hunting tab, there were different tables, and one of the tables was related to device info, device alert, and device events. That was very helpful. Another feature that I liked but didn't have access to was deep analysis."
  • "The documentation on their website is somewhat outdated and doesn't show properly. I wanted to try a query in Microsoft Defender 365. When I opened the related documentation from the security blog on the Microsoft website, the figures were not showing. It was difficult to understand the article without having the figures. The figures were there in the article, but they were not getting loaded, which made the article obsolete."

What is our primary use case?

The main use case has been for threat hunting, not in the sense of actively looking for the threat, but in terms of analyzing the ongoing process within clients' machines. I was looking into what kind of changes happen when you install any new software and it asks for so many permissions. I wanted to analyze the criticality of the permissions being asked and so on. Usually, when we install any software, we just click next, next, and next. We don't look at the details. So, my role was to check how it behaves within a system. For that reason, I used Microsoft Defender. 

I used the query language to do advanced threat hunting. I ran different queries to collect the data. The data was then brought into Power BI. We had data coming from different channels. So, we used Power BI to collect it at a single point.

How has it helped my organization?

My usage of it was on a very small scale. I am not aware of its overall impact on the organization, but it did help us a lot to know and achieve what we wanted to achieve. Without Microsoft 365 Defender, the detection for our use case would have been impossible.

It provided more visibility into threats, and it came with some of the default functions from Microsoft, which was an advantage. They had already defined different tables in advanced threat hunting, which was very helpful. I am not aware of other vendors providing that.

Its threat intelligence helped to prepare for potential threats before they hit and to take proactive steps. That was my target for that project. We were actively looking for vulnerabilities inside the software, and we wanted to detect the software supply chain aspect. That was a difficult task, but we wanted to be ahead before any attack happened. That's why we were using Microsoft 365 Defender.

It saved time. They had already defined different tables to identify different artifacts within the system, which saved about 50% of our time.

What is most valuable?

Within advanced threat hunting, the tables that have already been defined by Microsoft are helpful. In the advanced threat hunting tab, there were different tables, and one of the tables was related to device info, device alert, and device events. That was very helpful. Another feature that I liked but didn't have access to was deep analysis.

I liked its portal a lot. I am currently using a different vendor, and there is a big difference between them. Microsoft had a very good portal, and its user interface was good. Irrespective of where I was, with a click, I could see comprehensive details about something on the right side. The related information was always on the right side. So, I didn't have to jump over different tabs and functionalities. The information was always there on the right side, which is something I liked in Microsoft 365 Defender portal.

What needs improvement?

The documentation on their website is somewhat outdated and doesn't show properly. I wanted to try a query in Microsoft Defender 365. When I opened the related documentation from the security blog on the Microsoft website, the figures were not showing. It was difficult to understand the article without having the figures. The figures were there in the article, but they were not getting loaded, which made the article obsolete. They should refresh all their articles and see that the steps and figures aren't missing. They can also provide more documentation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used it just for four months in a previous company.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I never had any problems with it. It was always stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable. You can query each and every machine in the company.

I was working for a client, and that client had more than 50,000 people.

How are customer service and support?

I never contacted them directly, but based on what I heard during the meetings, they seemed to be quite helpful and good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I didn't use any other similar solution before Microsoft 365 Defender. That was the first time I used Microsoft 365 Defender. That was my first experience. Now, I'm using a different product, and I can see that Microsoft 365 Defender was much better than the current product.

Microsoft 365 Defender is very good for analyzing something. There are multiple types of data and multiple ways to utilize that data. With a single click, you can have all the related data for a particular topic. That's really good, and that is what I'm missing in the current product.

What other advice do I have?

I did not use Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but I saw the cloud part for monitoring cloud applications. It was nice, and it had some added functionalities. For example, application risk scoring was very good. It shows what data has been considered to give a particular risk score, which is useful for a new learner like me. It was helpful to know the criteria for scoring. They also included so many applications. There were more than 24,000 cloud applications inside their catalog. That's a really good catalog.

To a security colleague who says it’s better to go with a best-of-breed strategy rather than a single vendor’s security suite, I would agree that multiple vendors are better than a single vendor because every vendor has different capabilities. It's always better to use the best products from different vendors than to use all the products from the same vendor.

I would rate Microsoft 365 Defender a nine out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Guilherme Queiroz - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
MSP
Aug 15, 2022
Eliminates looking at multiple screens, giving us one XDR dashboard, and that saves time
Pros and Cons
  • "We also use Microsoft Sentinel, Defender for Cloud, Defender for Identity, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. They are all integrated and it was very easy to integrate them. In my experience with the integrations, it was just a click of a button and things were integrated. It's just a button."
  • "Microsoft Sentinel enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem, investigate threats, and respond from one place, which has reduced our time to detection and time to response by about 20 percent."
  • "There are other SIEM solutions that are easier to use, mainly based on the creation of rules, use cases, and groups."

What is our primary use case?

It's the main tool that we use for the customer that we support. We don't use any other tools to monitor the environment.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps us prioritize threats.

In addition, Microsoft Sentinel enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem. One of the main reasons we use Sentinel is to receive logs from different sources and create analytical routines to generate alerts. Sentinel enables you to investigate threats and respond from one place and that is also very important because it becomes part of the monitoring team.

Microsoft 365 Defender has also helped eliminate looking at multiple dashboards, giving us one XDR dashboard. That means we don't have to spend too much time checking different pages. We just have one specific portal with all the information.

The solution has saved us time, although we haven't measured how much. It has reduced our time to detection and time to response by about 20 percent.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the 

  • integration among all the Microsoft tools
  • details of the alerts.

We also use Microsoft Sentinel, Defender for Cloud, Defender for Identity, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. They are all integrated and it was very easy to integrate them. In my experience the with the integrations, it was just a click of a button and things were integrated. It's just a button.

They work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across the environment. We get more details when we integrate more tools, so it's relevant to have integration enabled. When it comes to monitoring an environment, this is very important, because you get different perspectives and points of view on the same alert.

I have a positive impression of the visibility into threats that the solution provides. It brings a lot of information and details related to the alerts or any security threat.

What needs improvement?

There are other SIEM solutions that are easier to use, mainly based on the creation of rules, use cases, and groups.

There could also be an improvement on the customization part. Sometimes we need to customize a few configurations but we can't.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft 365 Defender for a year and a half.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have never had any problem with downtime.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good.

How are customer service and support?

Sometimes, they still take too much time to reply. But when they do reply, it's positive support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup, but there is no maintenance involved now.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to have someone from Microsoft involved in the deployment part to help. There are a lot of details that they have information about, and it's impossible to know everything.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Awais Sajid - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Engineer at Secure Networks
Real User
Top 20
Jun 6, 2024
Helps stop advanced attacks, saves costs, and time
Pros and Cons
  • "Microsoft Defender is stable."
  • "Microsoft Defender is slow to adapt to evolving threats."

What is our primary use case?

Microsoft Defender is used for email protection. 

How has it helped my organization?

Microsoft Defender helps stop advanced attacks. We use PII disclosure, we track sensitive data in emails, ransomware, and phishing emails.

Microsoft Defender has saved us costs. 

Microsoft Defender has helped save us investigation time.

What needs improvement?

Microsoft Defender is slow to adapt to evolving threats.

For how long have I used the solution?

I was using Microsoft Defender for one and a half years until a month ago when I switched to a different team.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Microsoft Defender is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Microsoft Defender is scalable.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I previously used Rapid7 InsightIDR for Security Information Event Management and Extended Detection and Response. While InsightIDR offered a user-friendly dashboard for managing detected incidents, its limitation of creating only around 25 custom rules restricted our ability to identify emerging threats. With the ever-evolving threat landscape, I believe a solution with a more adaptable defense system, like Microsoft Defender, is necessary to keep up with the pace of new incidents.

How was the initial setup?

Microsoft Defender was straightforward to set up. It came with a lot of useful documentation to help.

The deployment took almost two months. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Microsoft Defender falls within a mid-tier price range compared to other security solutions.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Microsoft Defender eight out of ten.

Microsoft Defender is well-documented and we can find answers to our questions from the user community.

I recommend Microsoft Defender for organizations that are already using other Microsoft products. Since they're likely within the same ecosystem, integrating Defender for antivirus protection should be a smooth process.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Luiz Campos. - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber e Cloud Security | Security Solution Specialist at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Dec 4, 2023
Good threat hunting, user-friendly, and protects against ransomware
Pros and Cons
  • "The common and advanced security policies for threat hunting and blocking attacks are valuable."
  • "Microsoft frequently changes the names of its products, sometimes even renaming entire portals or features."

What is our primary use case?

We use Microsoft Defender XDR for endpoint protection.

How has it helped my organization?

We have integrated Microsoft Defender XDR with 365 for identity and access management.

Microsoft Defender XDR protects against ransomware, business, and mail compromise. Microsoft offers the MITRE ATT&CK framework through its Defender XDR platform. This integration is particularly beneficial for Microsoft Office environments. It's a common practice to use Sentinel to investigate potential security incidents. For instance, we can check logs, examine hunting patterns, and review queries in Sentinel. Additionally, I've encountered situations where clients have lost their conditional access policies due to various factors, such as country-based rules, MSA-related rules, or application-based roles. Clients need to maintain these specific policies to ensure optimal security.

Multi-tenant management is a relatively new concept. I currently work with GCP, Microsoft 365, AWS, and Azure, where I access and perform assessments.

Microsoft Defender XDR helps replace other security products in our environment.

Microsoft Defender XDR helps save us time.

What is most valuable?

The common and advanced security policies for threat hunting and blocking attacks are valuable.

The UI is user-friendly. 

What needs improvement?

Microsoft frequently changes the names of its products, sometimes even renaming entire portals or features. This can make it difficult for users to keep track of the latest changes and find the information they need. For example, every month, Microsoft might rename a product, change a portal, or update a feature. This can lead to confusion and frustration for users.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Defender XDR for seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability of Microsoft Defender XDR eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability of Microsoft Defender XDR eight out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The few times I have contacted technical support, they have been helpful.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. Depending on the size of the environment, two to three people are involved in the installation.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Purchasing Microsoft Defender XDR as part of a Microsoft 365 bundle can be cost-effective, but acquiring it as a standalone product may be more expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Deputy Director of Infrastructures and IT Services at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Aug 15, 2022
Integration with other Microsoft products has eliminated the need for multiple dashboards
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of all is the full integration with the rest of the software in the operating system and Office 365, as well as Microsoft SCCM. It is quite easy for us to work with the whole instance of Microsoft products. This integration improves the benefits of the whole suite of products."
  • "I'd like to see a wider solution that includes not only desktop devices but also other devices, such as servers, storage cabinets, switching equipment, et cetera."

What is our primary use case?

I am the head of IT of the police force in the Madrid municipality. I have deployed the product to all 6,000 policemen and police women here and we are trying to protect all our devices with it.

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards. This is a part of the benefit of the integration. It's quite helpful to receive information and data that is correlated with other information, in the form of a graph or chart. It's a good added value. We are provided with consolidated information, which is very valuable for making decisions and moving forward in improving our devices and our security.

It's very well known by all our technicians and it has helped to decrease the time to detection and response.

And while I can't demonstrate it with metrics, my intuition is that we have saved money. Because we are a very large organization, we have very large needs in IT systems. Perhaps the best thing we did, years before, was to have everything, all applications and the operating system, come from Microsoft. Perhaps that means potential money savings.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of all is the full integration with the rest of the software in the operating system and Office 365, as well as Microsoft SCCM. It is quite easy for us to work with the whole instance of Microsoft products. This integration improves the benefits of the whole suite of products. Even the desktop devices seem more productive by having all these products integrated. That's the best advantage.

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see a wider solution that includes not only desktop devices but also other devices, such as servers, storage cabinets, switching equipment, et cetera. That is where they should put in more effort. I don't have a global risk solution coming from Microsoft, one that could help me in all these different IT areas.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft 365 Defender for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate its stability at seven or eight out of 10. It's quite good. Up until today, we haven't had any big problems with the solution. I'm quite comfortable with it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is deployed to more than 25,000 in the municipality, but my responsibility is only over 6,000 people in the police corps.

How are customer service and support?

Microsoft provides quite good support across their different areas of activity. The people attending to your requests are quite professional. They take care of your requests and respond to your needs. They try to help you. The documentation is not the best in the world, but it's quite sufficient for our needs.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Years ago we had solutions from other companies, such as Trend Micro for the desktop devices, and Trend Micro and Sophos for servers.

We used to work in different ways. Some people were in the office with desktop devices, but most of our people work outside with mobile devices. The latter group is at much more risk and we wanted to protect all these devices from potential damage and risks.

The switch was a company decision made by higher management within the municipality. We started to work with Microsoft Office 365 years ago, and then a decision came down imposing the use of Microsoft 365. I feel comfortable with the decision, but I know inside our organization that we've had plenty of problems deploying all facilities given by M365.

How was the initial setup?

I'm not aware of having more or fewer problems with this product than the ones we had before, when it comes to deployment or interfaces. It's quite standard and the deployment was quite easy, but it was equally easy to deploy all the products years ago.

It has been easy to integrate with the rest of our devices and software. In addition, there was no impact on the user experience. The solution is transparent. The users may not even know of the existence of this product. There was no problem deploying and starting to use Microsoft 365 Defender. We have some other products, beyond the desktop level, that work in a coordinated way Defender.

The deployment took a few months, but we needed at least a year to stabilize our organization. The first days were awful because people couldn't understand the change in mentality required to work with this paradigm of software. During the first year, we had to cope with plenty of incidents and problems. Having passed the one-year mark since we deployed, we have started to see some of the benefits.

I generally use an "onion" deployment methodology. I start deploying new solutions in desktops that are quite close to my area of activity in the IT department. We implement, let's say, 50 to 100 desktops per day and we wait for a week to see if everything is okay and whether there are incidents. Once we are assured everything is fine, we implement by regional police units in different locations.

We had 10 to 12 operations technicians involved in the deployment.

Every software solution requires maintenance. In this case, there isn't a lot of maintenance. We have to keep an eye on the status of the solution every day. That process involves two or three people.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

As most software companies have done during the last few years, they have moved from a licensing model to pay-per-use. It was difficult to understand and accept this change. When we had to accept that model, it had a great risk for companies like ours that always have to cope with annual budgets. The question is: What happens if, for any reason, there's not enough budget to accept this model? That could be a great problem.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There was a possibility of continuing with the solutions we had been working with.

But we cannot compare them because the other solutions were built eight years ago. Technology has changed so much.

What other advice do I have?

Fortunately, we haven't had the chance to see if the solution's threat intelligence helps prepare us for potential threats before they hit. But I'm quite sure that it's working together with other tools to help us to stop potential breaches and risks.

Give this product a chance. Is it the best in the market? I don't know. Is it the worst? I don't know. But what is quite good is the integration with the rest of Microsoft's software products. That's the added value.

Try it, prove it, and see how it integrates. It depends on the situation. If a colleague is using Linux in their data center and desktops, of course, I wouldn't recommend this solution. But here in Spain, most companies have Microsoft products.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Defender XDR Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: August 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Defender XDR Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.