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Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender XDR 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
7.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint enhances productivity and reduces costs by streamlining threat detection, integrating tools, and minimizing manual intervention.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Defender XDR provides high ROI by consolidating security tools, streamlining operations, and enhancing security, despite licensing 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.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Cisco Secure Endpoint support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, providing quick issue resolution and valuable user guidance.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Defender XDR's support is timely and responsive, yet smaller organizations experience slower, less effective assistance than larger ones.
Cisco has good technical support, especially considering these are newer solutions compared to traditional routing and switching products.
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.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint is scalable, integrates with SecureX for efficient management, and supports diverse industries without extra resources.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender XDR scales well for various organizations, efficiently supporting growth and flexibility despite some network deployment challenges.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is definitely scalable.
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.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco Secure Endpoint is highly stable, reliable, and trusted for performance, earning high ratings from users in various enterprises.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender XDR is praised for high stability, reliable performance, minimal issues, frequent updates, and prompt issue resolution.
We have not encountered any problems.
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.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint requires better integration, reporting, and UI enhancements, alongside improved pricing, AI capabilities, and IoT support.
Microsoft Defender XDR requires enhancements in speed, integration, automation, AI, ease-of-use, and industry-specific threat intelligence.
The forensic capabilities need enhancement, especially for deep forensic data collection.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers competitive and flexible pricing with value-rich features, despite some complexity in licensing.
Microsoft Defender XDR pricing is seen as complex but fair, with high costs alleviated in bundled Microsoft 365 packages.
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides advanced security features, cross-platform support, and ease of use with strong threat intelligence and support.
Microsoft Defender XDR integrates tools for comprehensive security, offering threat detection, automation, identity protection, and enhanced efficiency.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet.
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.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
28th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (35th), Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.6%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 2.9%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender XDR2.9%
Cisco Secure Endpoint1.6%
Other95.5%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

AKSHAYK - PeerSpot reviewer
Identifies the malicious content in an organization's network
We must install an agent on every laptop. We do not know how to do it for the network. We shouldn’t have to install agents individually if it's a corporate network. The product does not provide options like tunnel creation or virtual appliances. If there are 2000 users and only one network administrator, installing the agent on every laptop will be time-consuming.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise37
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Endpoint?
The product's initial setup phase was very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco Secure Endpoint lacks features like DLP which other vendors offer. XDR is new, so integration capabilities with third-party tools need improvement. The forensic capabilities need enhancement,...
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...
 

Also Known As

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.