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Lookout 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

Lookout
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
51st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (28th), Mobile Threat Defense (3rd)
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 Lookout is 0.7%, up from 0.4% 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%
Lookout0.7%
Other92.0%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
IT Manager at NHS Trust
Enhanced mobile security with visibility into app and website usage, but installation challenges remain
We use Lookout for mobile devices, such as phones It has reduced our risk around mobile devices. I like the security features and being able to see what apps and websites people are using. There is nothing we have come across that we've desired. We have been using Lookout for one year. The…
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

"We have not had any issues with bugs or breakdowns."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"In my opinion, the most valuable aspects are the reporting analytics and integration with Sentinel. Defender does an excellent job of correlating the different entities that comprise threat analysis, analytics data, and log analytics. It helps to piece together investigations into any exploit or malicious activity within a specific tenant. AI and analytics tools are probably the most valuable components."
"The detection features are valuable, as is the fact that it is easier to port these logs into Sentinel. That is also useful for us. It is more comprehensive."
"The feature I like the most about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it's built into Microsoft; the ASR rules have really secured our endpoints."
"This solution definitely increases our security posture. When you are reviewing your existing fleet or endpoints and based on the configuration that you put out of your Defender for Endpoint, you then receive a security score from Microsoft. Depending on what rules you have configured, what policies you have deployed, and what attack surface reduction rules that you have set up and deployed, it is almost gamifying information security in the sense that you are always trying to achieve a higher score. The more hardening you perform on your endpoints, the better score you receive. This generally tends to give you a better peace of mind, but also makes you secure at the same time."
"There are a couple of features, such as isolating the devices or connecting the device and connecting live response."
"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."
"Defender for Endpoint provides good visibility into threats and has favorable threat intelligence."
"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."
 

Cons

"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"The initial setup requires a little bit of experience with configuration."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"It would be nice to have a paid upgrade that would provide additional screening of the day-to-day activities."
"The pricing could be a bit better."
"There are still some things where I think they don't quite match up or are a bit hard to find or understand."
"It can be more secure."
"The product development team makes frequent changes that affect the stability of the solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint does not offer default templates for alerts, requiring us to configure everything ourselves to avoid numerous false positives."
"Microsoft Defender could be improved with features more like the McAfee ePO. It would be better if I had a console to get all the information for my endpoints. Maybe this is too much for it, but it would be better if it could handle those non-signature-based malicious codes or viruses."
"In India at least, it seems to be a bit more expensive than other options."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Lookout is definitely on the lower end when it comes to price point and that seems to be the only differentiator. The technology is in place in this space and it's really about who is coming in at the better price point now."
"The pricing is fair; it's comparable to our previous solution, and we carried out multiple POCs and POVs (proof of value). The product is worth the money we pay for it."
"The price is fair for the features Microsoft delivers. If you want tailor-made features, you have to mix different licenses. It isn't straightforward."
"Compared to ESET, the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is on the higher side."
"We have the E5 security license, and the solution comes with that."
"This solution is part of Windows and comes included with it."
"For me, the pricing is very good, but for management it's very expensive. Other solutions are less expensive. But when I present all the information and all the reports they say, "Well, it's expensive, but the cost-benefit is very good.""
"The solution is an open source version and was free with a paid version of Windows 10."
"Even if you are not registered as a not-for-profit, the offering that they have is definitely worth consideration. This is in the sense that the E5 stack just gives you so many benefits. You get your entire productivity suite through Microsoft 365 apps. You get all your security and identity protection. You get the Defender for Endpoint and Defender for Identity. You get the cloud access security broker as well. You get Azure Active Directory Premium P2, which gives you so many good things that you can configure and deploy. You don't have to configure them on day one, but you have access to so many different tools that will protect your data, security, endpoints, and identities that you could build out a security strategy 18 months long, and slowly work your way through it, based on what you have available to you through your license."
"The solution is free and comes with Windows."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lookout?
The pricing is a little expensive. We are currently looking at comparisons with other solutions, including Umbrella.
What needs improvement with Lookout?
There is nothing we have come across that we've desired.
What is your primary use case for Lookout?
We use Lookout for mobile devices, such as phones.
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

CipherCloud
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 Lookout vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.