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Cuckoo Sandbox vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

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
14th
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
210
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Cuckoo Sandbox is 1.7%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 9.1%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint9.1%
Cuckoo Sandbox1.7%
Other89.2%
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."
"Cuckoo Sandbox is very stable and reliable."
"The scalability is an eight out of ten."
"The dynamic analysis feature in Cuckoo Sandbox is excellent compared to others."
"Defender provides useful alerts and groups them. It sends an alert to your portal if it detects any malicious activity, and you can group multiple alerts to form an incident."
"We had certain compliance and usage issues. For example, our company wanted to go with CIS, but we didn't have a proper way of measuring whether the endpoints have the right standards in place or whether they were compliant with CIS. Microsoft Defender was like a one-stop for most things because it gave us the vulnerability and patching scores so that our vulnerability management teams can focus on covering up the vulnerabilities and the patching team can check the vulnerable versions and deploy the right versions."
"It integrates very well with all Windows workstations or other Microsoft Endpoint products. It also works quite well. So far, I have not had any issue that hasn't been sorted out. It doesn't use too many resources, so you don't have to install different things."
"Defender is stable, I haven't had any problems with viruses when using it, and it's easy to update."
"It's pretty easy to use, works with compliance issues, and is reliable."
"Defender has very little impact on the end-user and the agent works quite well with a minimal impact on the client and server."
"I find the entire Microsoft Defender for Endpoint valuable because it finds not just definition-based threats but also behaviors."
"The most valuable features are the Windows Firewall and the regular virus definition updates. These features are very helpful and have helped to improve our security."
 

Cons

"Cuckoo Sandbox could improve its signature detection because it currently only shows simple file modifications and connections to different botnets."
"The only issue is with the installation, which requires some adjustments."
"It lacks correlation with other types of information, such as explaining why a particular file was modified or identifying the specific process responsible."
"I want the command to be quicker."
"Microsoft support could be more knowledgeable."
"I would like to see fewer pop messages and alerts."
"Its interface can be improved a little bit. We would like to have some sort of centralization. It should have something like a central server that is managing all the other clients. There are solutions from Kaspersky or ESET NOD32 that are really doing this kind of thing currently. We would like to see something similar from Microsoft."
"It can be more secure."
"The major area for improvement is the integration with a managed service provider."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by making the reporting better."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex."
"There's scanning going on that occasionally topples the memory, causing everything to freeze. This should be fixed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have to pay five to ten thousand dollars for this solution."
"It is built into Windows 10. If our clients are using Microsoft Defender, the cost goes away for them."
"We are using the free version."
"They are now doing it on an endpoint basis. It is based on the number of endpoints, which is good."
"Microsoft Defender ATP is expensive."
"This is an expensive product and licensing for all Microsoft products is a big issue."
"This product is included in the pricing for Windows."
"We are required to pay for the data we ingest, and increasing the data amount incurs additional expenses."
"The license for Microsoft Windows covers Microsoft Defender for Endpoint."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
11%
Educational Organization
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
No data available
 

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 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: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.