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ConnectWise SIEM vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

ConnectWise SIEM
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
53rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (51st), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (21st), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (25th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of ConnectWise SIEM is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 7.3%, down from 11.1% 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 for Endpoint7.3%
ConnectWise SIEM0.6%
Other92.1%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2711757 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Software Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Automated alerting and reporting excel while cost and feature limitations remain
I find automation to be one of the best and most valuable features of the product. Machine learning is incorporated into the solution, though AI is a broader term that I wouldn't apply here. I haven't personally explored AI yet, but I will investigate it. Machine learning functions more as automation in my experience, as there's no training involved yet. I want to conduct R&D on another project with Wazuh to determine how to capture usage, for example, tracking user logins and time spent. This is where I need to implement machine learning. Additionally, the extraction of GeoIP adds complexity. The solution is effectively reducing incident response times in operations.
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"One valuable feature of ConnectWise Fortify is the ability to add other teams and receive notifications when customers make changes or remove multi-factor authentication in Microsoft or SAP environments."
"The integration capabilities of ConnectWise SIEM are off the shelf, making it easy to buy and use; you just unpack it and use it."
"We have found the solution has great functionality and it is easy to use."
"It depends on the licensing. Most of the customers have got at least a 365 E3 license, and they can use most of the features of Windows 10 Defender. So, anyone who has got an enterprise license can start using those features. Some of the customers have got E5 licenses, and they can use all advanced features. Customers with E5 licenses use the advanced site protection (ATP) features and web content filtering without going via a proxy, which gives the benefit of replacing the proxy. They can get the benefit of MCAS and integration with Intune and the endpoint manager. It is a kind of single platform for all 365 technologies. It helps customers in managing everything through a unified portal."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it is embedded into the Windows system. Additionally, the performance is good and simple to maintain."
"Defender for Endpoint has one dashboard with security-related information, vulnerability-related information, and basic recommendations from Microsoft, all in different tabs. That's helpful because if we want to fix only the recommended ones, we can go fix all of them..."
"It comes included with the Windows license."
"The scalability is good."
"I like the real-time protection features. Windows Defender will detect if there's a threat like a Trojan or something like that but Kaspersky lets it run normally."
"We found that because the endpoint devices are based on Microsoft Windows devices and Windows Defender is integrated with the foundation and the core layer, it makes it more integrated and more agile in terms of responding to any security threats or changes or development"
"You have endpoint security to keep your devices safe. That's the feature that we're interested in."
 

Cons

"ConnectWise SIEM is primarily focused on notifications and is limited in that aspect, while Wazuh can automate the elimination process."
"ConnectWise Fortify could work on covering more areas, like phishing messages, which have become more complicated to detect."
"The manage portion of the solution is complicated and should be simplified by having different versions to meet the needs of different size companies."
"Defender's cloud integration could be improved."
"The deployment of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Windows 10 is not quite so straightforward. This could be made easier."
"I personally haven't experienced any pain points, but some of my coworkers feel that it isn't secure enough."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is effective for validating work, but not ideal for investigations."
"Updates are not coming out of preview quickly enough and it is holding back on the development of the product."
"The automation could be simpler on the mitigation side. It has a learning curve. Otherwise, it's pretty easy."
"We'd like the stability to be better."
"The product itself does not necessarily need improvement, but the support and implementation of the product are the disaster cases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"Microsoft Defender is an expensive product in my country."
"I'm not too familiar with costs as I'm an architect, though I know about online pricing, as I help two teams with online purchasing and procurement. Nowadays, everyone has an enterprise agreement, such as an E3 license, which we provide to our customers."
"We have seen ROI. Most of the other competing alternatives will cost up to around $30 per user device. We average 400 devices. Therefore, the amount that we save each year is 400 times $30."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is cost-effective because there's one unified license, and with this unified license, you get the capabilities for your cloud applications, servers, and endpoints as well. Therefore, it saves us a lot of money because the cost with other solutions is for just one piece of OS or maybe an urban environment. The licensing process is not complex as well."
"It's all pretty easy. For some clients, it's an easier sell because it's just an add-on to their existing Microsoft licensing and Office 365 licensing."
"When customers haven't deployed the solution and don't have licenses, it can be expensive to start from scratch."
"We are using the free version."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes with Windows 10, and it's free. But for you to be able to manage it in the cloud and use the console, you need to have either an Office 365 E5 subscription or a Microsoft M365 subscription. You need to buy an extra license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ConnectWise Fortify?
I haven't utilized the advanced threat intelligence capabilities with ConnectWise SIEM. Advanced threat intelligence is an option, but I haven't explored this feature yet. The advanced threat intel...
What is your primary use case for ConnectWise Fortify?
I do not have experience with ConnectWise SIEM for RMM, as I mostly work on Wazuh, and I have a team that handles ConnectWise SIEM. I'm linking with them, serving as the bridge. I am solely working...
What advice do you have for others considering ConnectWise Fortify?
The review can be made anonymous if just my name and not the company name is used. I would assess the real-time visibility for my organization as somewhat real-time, but it's not fully real-time. T...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
 

Also Known As

ConnectWise Security Management, ConnectWise Fortify, Continuum Fortify, ConnectWise SIEM, ConnectWise SASE
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Techvera, Syrex, Clark Integrated Technologies
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about ConnectWise SIEM vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.