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Cuckoo Sandbox vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Cuckoo Sandbox
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Cuckoo Sandbox is 1.7%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.9%, down from 16.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.9%
Cuckoo Sandbox1.7%
Other91.4%
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Adrián Rodriguez Garcia - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Threat Intelligence & Hunting Analyst/Consultant at Wise Security Global
Provides detailed behavior analysis while needing improvements in signature detection
I use Cuckoo Sandbox primarily for automated malware behavior analysis. Specifically, it helps me extract indicators of compromise (IOC) to add to different platforms in the security environment of my company Cuckoo can show me every behavior in a machine. For example, it shows all files…
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

"Cuckoo Sandbox is very stable and reliable."
"The scalability is an eight out of ten."
"Cuckoo Sandbox is very stable and reliable."
"The dynamic analysis feature in Cuckoo Sandbox is excellent compared to others."
"For threat-hunting, I'll put some threats in a test scenario. I've downloaded known viruses that are out in the public for testing. They're not really a virus but they've got a signature. Defender for Endpoint will automatically find those, quarantine them for me, and alert me to what it did. It gives me "automated eyes.""
"It's a stable solution."
"I find the layer protection and real-time protection very useful because when I launch a program, I always have a notification and an alarm."
"Defender for Endpoint is a good competitor for those looking for an EDR solution, and for those looking for a complete security suite, it's one of the better choices."
"We had Norton Antivirus before, and with Norton, we didn't have a way to centrally manage a lot of features. Defender allowed us to deploy it from our Office 365 admin console. That is probably the biggest thing that made us go with Defender."
"I like the simplicity of the portal and the integration with Microsoft Intune. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy to use and implement."
"The initial setup is not difficult or complex; it's very simple and straightforward."
"This is a very go, proactive solution to threat protection using advanced analysis."
 

Cons

"I want the command to be quicker."
"Cuckoo Sandbox could improve its signature detection because it currently only shows simple file modifications and connections to different botnets."
"It lacks correlation with other types of information, such as explaining why a particular file was modified or identifying the specific process responsible."
"The only issue is with the installation, which requires some adjustments."
"It is not very scalable from the eyes of an MSP because there is no dashboard that you can use to see all of your devices that have Windows Defender unless you have your own dashboard or an RMM tool to actually look at it. So, you might not get to know that a particular computer of a client is doing something, and it might have got a virus. That person might know that, but unless you set it up to actually send you the information, you won't get to know that. That's one of the things that is hard with Microsoft Defender. It is not made for the MSP world where you have one pane of glass to see all of your clients with Microsoft Defender on it unless your RMM tool already has that built-in and it can see the telemetry from Microsoft Defender."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can improve by providing more and different types of reports."
"I would like to see fewer pop messages and alerts."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can have more options and more AI capabilities in the future, because everything keeps changing."
"It makes your Surface devices hot. It is resource-intensive."
"I would like to have a dashboard that shows an overview of the results for the enterprise."
"There is no behavior analytics for devices and endpoints. There is no behavior-based protection."
"We would like more customization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have to pay five to ten thousand dollars for this solution."
"Licensing options vary. Some customers buy it as an enterprise agreement and pay yearly. Others buy it as a CSP, so they pay per month. It completely depends on the customer's needs."
"When customers haven't deployed the solution and don't have licenses, it can be expensive to start from scratch."
"The nice thing about Defender and Sentinel is that the cost is based on the data logs that you ingest from the Defender endpoints and data connectors. I don't have to buy a 25- or 50- or 1,000-user or enterprise license. I can buy one license at a time."
"There are different licenses, such as E3 and E5."
"You don't need to worry about the renewal and purchase of antivirus products. It is bundled with Windows 10, so you don't need to worry about separately purchasing any antiviruses."
"The license for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included in the license for the Microsoft Windows operating system."
"We sell this product as part of Office 365 and it is not expensive."
"Licenses depend upon what you are looking for and what kind of security do you want to implement. There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. When we used to buy Symantec, we used to spend on 100 licenses. We used to spend approximately $2,700 for those many licenses, and they came in packs. To add one more license, I had to buy a pack with a minimum of 10 licenses. I had to spend on nine extra licenses because I can't get a single license, whereas when we go for Microsoft, we can get as many licenses as we want. If I have 100 users today, and tomorrow, I have 90 users, I can release my 10 licenses next month. With any other software vendor, you buy licenses for one year, and you have to stick with that. If today you have 100 licenses, and tomorrow, you have 50, you have already paid for one year's license. You can't go back and tell them that I don't require these 50 licenses because I have lost my 50 users, but with Microsoft Defender, licensing is on a monthly basis. It gives you both options. You can go yearly and save on it, or you can go monthly. You will, again, save on it. It is very fair everywhere."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise95
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cuckoo Sandbox?
I don't know the price as I always use the free version of Cuckoo Sandbox.
What needs improvement with Cuckoo Sandbox?
The only issue is with the installation, which requires some adjustments. We need to check the OS level for compatibility. This can be challenging for those who are new to Cuckoo Sandbox.
What is your primary use case for Cuckoo Sandbox?
We are using Cuckoo Sandbox ( /products/cuckoo-sandbox-reviews ) for phishing emails and malware analysis.
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

No data available
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Cuckoo Sandbox vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.