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Malwarebytes Teams vs Microsoft Defender for Business comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 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

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Malwarebytes Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Malwarebytes Teams is 1.7%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.7%
Microsoft Defender for Business1.6%
Malwarebytes Teams1.7%
Other93.0%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
reviewer2594097 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at a wholesaler/distributor with 11-50 employees
Exceptional malware protection with regular updates and behavior-based detection
There are no built-in backups or integrated backup options, which could be an opportunity. The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it. Other customers have mentioned issues with false positives. It lacks enterprise-level management and more enterprise functionality. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are much more enterprise-grade solutions. Malwarebytes has limited integration with cybersecurity tools and lacks enterprise integrations because it is not an enterprise product.
Paritosh Jani - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate VP (Managed Information Technology Services) at Dev Information Tech Pvt Ltd
Has delivered automated threat response and streamlined integration with advanced tools
The best features of Microsoft Defender for Business include it coming as an XDR solution which provides automated investigations, remediations, and endpoint detection and response. Moreover, it can be tightly integrated with vulnerability management or detecting vulnerabilities and pushing them to the SIEM solution. I utilize the advanced threat hunting feature of Microsoft Defender for Business and find it helpful; it's good and improving with every update. Microsoft Defender for Business integrates effectively with the Microsoft ecosystem as with Azure Sentinel, and it has a two-way natural integration. Apart from that, it also integrates with industry SIEM solutions such as Splunk.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability is pretty good except for one or two cases, and based on the performance, it's been okay with pretty high performance, no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze."
"Technical support is the best in class, in my opinion, because they have invested heavily in research and development."
"Cortex is a very good total solution on the endpoints."
"One of the main benefits of the solution is its intelligence to correlate the events into an incident."
"The one feature of Palo Alto Networks Traps that our organization finds most valuable is the App ID service."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is easy to use and does not consume a lot of hardware resources."
"Based on my experience, I would recommend Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks to other people."
"Palo Alto is the best security solution in the market."
"The most valuable features of Malwarebytes are the agents, user experience, efficiency of the findings, and MDR features."
"It allows us to have better knowledge of the way people use the tool and how we can improve their workflows."
"I commonly recommend Malwarebytes to people due to the fact that I find it quite reliable."
"We don't have to spend any time remediating bad things happening: Not viruses nor ransomware."
"It is a stable solution."
"The behavior-based detection is very nice, and it combats zero-day threats by looking for anomalous behaviors."
"The central management of devices from different sites is a very good feature; this has made them much easier to manage."
"The solution is very good at scanning."
"Microsoft Defender for Business is good for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers solid security flexibility and integration with tools like Microsoft Lighthouse and some other software. It takes some of the features of Defender for Endpoint EDR and provides those services for small and medium-sized business environments."
"Using Microsoft Defender for Business is beneficial for my company."
"The security features in Microsoft Defender for Business that have been most effective for our company include the way it's built-in and intertwined into all the operating systems, giving us a good opportunity to holistically block things for the organization using that tenant."
"Because Microsoft Defender for Business is a native solution to Microsoft 365, it has contributed to my organization's proactive defense strategies by saving time on integration."
"Microsoft Defender for Business offers the best pricing option in the market and is very cost-effective."
"The best features of Microsoft Defender for Business include it coming as an XDR solution which provides automated investigations, remediations, and endpoint detection and response."
"The most effective features of Microsoft Defender for Business include its threat detection and response capabilities in managing vulnerabilities and ransomware attacks."
"I recommend Microsoft Defender for Business to startup organizations looking for a plug-and-play solution."
 

Cons

"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."
"There's an overall lack of features."
"I have run into some detection issues with Cortex XDR. It needs to be better at detection of internal attacks."
"The product's pricing could be better."
"There are some limitations on the Traps agents."
"Cortex XDR could improve its sales support team, including better commission structures and referral programs."
"We had a problem with getting our older endpoints up to date, but their newest updates have been really good. I've been pleased with it in terms of what our needs are. It's doing what we want it to do."
"They are charging for Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) services, so if the per GB data could be provided at a certain level free of cost or at the same cost which the customer is taking for the entire bundle, that would be better."
"It's not covering everything as we just started in EDR. In Malwarebytes, there's no response. The response is very limited, and integration is very limited."
"The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it."
"The EPP solution lacks the sophisticated artificial intelligence required for automating reports and letting you know about things in real-time."
"If they want to compete with bigger players, they should consider adding items like threat detection and website warnings."
"My clients have frequently encountered some tech support scams where when you go to a particular website, it throws up a fake warning to you and states that you need to call this number."
"Malwarebytes can improve its network database. Malwarebytes can scan the files and registry. It can scan the system with a light agent. It will not impact the performance of your PC. You can do the full scan and database scan using the EDR, and the RAM and CPU consumption will not increase."
"We had a little performance problem with the solution, but that's been resolved. Since then, it's been running well."
"It's not good in search hunting."
"The user interface has a lot of features which can make it complex and hard to adapt to for some users."
"Microsoft should provide batch management solutions with the application, integrating pass management with roles."
"The areas where Microsoft Defender for Business could improve include the support, installation process, and wiki. I should be able to find solutions to issues quickly without having to delve too deep."
"If I need logs and don't have local storage bundled with Defender, I need to add workspace and log analytics, which is costly for storing logs of 2 GB, 5 GB, 10 GB."
"I am not satisfied with Microsoft's technical support. There are challenges with the knowledge and experience of the support staff, frequent redirection between departments, and slow response times."
"The biggest one is that Defender needs to be more proactive to the emerging threats. There can be tighter integration with email, especially how it integrates with our email system, which is the Microsoft Outlook suite. There should be the ability to react a lot quicker to emerging threats because sometimes, it takes a few days before some of these new threats are fully identified, and we need that to be a few hours."
"We faced some issues while running some applications on Mac."
"Threat protection could be improved even though it is already a built-in feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution has one subscription for endpoint protection and one subscription for detection and response. The two licenses combined give you the BRO version."
"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"I feel it is fairly priced."
"I believe the retail price is between $40 and $50 per copy."
"I would say that it's affordable. It costs much less than Sentinel One, CrowdStrike, or anything of that nature. But, at the same time, you are getting what you pay for. So I would say it's one of the best when you're comparing traditional NextGen AVs like Webroot that aren't the best in the bunch."
"Yearly, it is around $50 per client."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"The price of Malwarebytes is in the middle range compared to other vendors."
"The cost may be something in the ballpark of $20-25 a year per computer."
"The platform pricing is competitive with other antivirus products."
"It is expensive."
"The tool's cost has been a little high, but I do not think it was terrible."
"Since we're a nonprofit, we get pretty good discounts on the tool."
"The tool is cheap, while some other solutions are more expensive. I remember the tool cost about five euros for a workstation or for a user on a monthly basis."
"It has to get more competitive because we are starting to see some of the competitors providing better pricing, and some of it, of course, is to gain market share. The Defender product pricing is probably a little higher than the competitors."
"Defender for Business is included by default with an Office 365 premium subscription."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. ...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
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,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Malwarebytes?
I really hate the automatic rebilling without officially confirming it with me. It's an annoyance and they should at ...
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes?
It takes up too much space when it's trying to run in the background.
What is your primary use case for Malwarebytes?
My primary use case is that it's protecting me against malware.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?
Our thoughts on the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Business are that we wish it could be better. If the pricing w...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?
I see room for improvement in Microsoft Defender for Business, particularly regarding the consolidation of all securi...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Knutson Construction
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Malwarebytes Teams vs. Microsoft Defender for Business and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.