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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers high ROI through enhanced security, Azure integration, cost efficiency, and consolidated security functions.
Sentiment score
7.3
Organizations achieve financial gains and efficiency by using Microsoft Defender, eliminating third-party solutions, and enhancing security management.
Defender proactively indexes and analyzes documents, identifying potential threats even when inactive, enhancing preventative security.
Identifying potential vulnerabilities has helped us avoid costly data losses.
The biggest return on investment is the rapid improvement of security posture.
Without detection and protection measures, organizations would face substantial payments and reputational damage, including the necessity to inform customers about data breaches, potentially leading to loss of business.
We have seen a return on investment when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it saves labor by reducing the need for staff to focus on it.
The biggest return on investment for me when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the time saving.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud support varies; premium support is praised, standard support criticized for delays and escalations.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft's Defender for Endpoint support is generally effective but experiences vary; premium options offer swift, knowledgeable assistance.
Since security is critical, we prefer a quicker response time.
The support team was very responsive to queries.
They understand their product, but much like us, they struggle with the finer details, especially with new features.
The level-one support seems disconnected from subject matter experts.
I rate Microsoft support 10 out of 10.
Due to our size, we don't have access to direct technical support, but the knowledge base, Microsoft Learn, and the articles available are really good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is praised for its scalability, seamless integration, and effective performance across diverse infrastructures and regions.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint efficiently scales with diverse enterprises, integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, supporting growth effectively.
We are using infrastructure as a code, so we do not have any scalability issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud implementation because our cloud automatically does it.
It has multiple licenses and features, covering infrastructures from a hundred to five hundred virtual machines, without any issues.
Defender won't replace our endpoint XDR, but it will likely adapt and support any growth in the Microsoft Cloud space.
We managed to scale it out in a short amount of time, with two months of planning and three months of implementation on 10,000 computers.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable enough to handle various devices across environments, whether they are laptops, Android devices, or operating in hybrid environments.
Compatibility is its main feature.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable, despite occasional slow performance and minor issues, with high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is praised for stability, efficiency, and low resource impact, despite minor occasional bugs.
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft.
I rate Defender 10 out of 10 for stability.
Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud needs improved integration, automation, UI, documentation, AI, policy granularity, compatibility, and support to enhance usability.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint struggles with support, integration, UI, performance issues, and lacks essential features and platform support.
Microsoft, in general, could significantly improve its communication and support.
It would be beneficial to streamline recommendations to avoid unnecessary alerts and to refine the severity of alerts based on specific environments or environmental attributes.
The artificial intelligence features could be expanded to allow the system to autonomously manage security issues without needing intervention from admins.
Repeated interactions are necessary due to Level One's lack of tools and knowledge, hindering efficient problem-solving and negatively impacting our experience with Microsoft support.
We use Microsoft partners to help govern the platform, and as part of an alliance, we want to gather data from each tenant and combine them for a complete view.
Providing more detailed information on how Microsoft Defender for Endpoint detects vulnerabilities.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud's pricing is seen as flexible yet complex, with costs being a major concern for businesses.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers cost-effective, flexible pricing options integrated with Microsoft services, including discounts for education and volume.
Every time we consider expanding usage, we carefully evaluate the necessity due to cost concerns.
We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters.
Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs.
It costs $15 per VM for the P2 plan, which is seen as affordable for customers.
The pricing, setup, and licensing were very easy and simple.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances multi-cloud security with compliance, AI integration, posture management, and threat intelligence for improved operations.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers seamless integration, real-time protection, and automated response, ensuring robust security with minimal impact.
The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available.
This feature significantly aids in threat detection and enhances the user experience by streamlining security management.
The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security.
Defender for Endpoint's coverage across different platforms in our environment is pretty good. We have devices running Linux, Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and Android. It covers all of them.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides a unified management interface allowing customers to manage their on-premises and hybrid infrastructures from a single pane.
One of the best features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its database for identifying zero-day attacks or malware attacks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (3rd)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.4%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 8.9%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
A single tool for complete visibility and addressing security gaps
Currently, issues are structured in Microsoft Defender for Cloud at severity levels of high, critical, or warning, but these severity levels are not always right. For example, Microsoft might consider a port being open as critical, but that might not be the case for our company. Similarly, it might suggest closing some management ports, but you might need them to be able to log in, so the severity levels for certain things can be improved. Even though Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a way to temporarily disable certain alerts or notifications without affecting our security score, it would be better to have more granularized control over these recommendations. Currently, we cannot even disable certain alerts or notifications. There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place. Additionally, enabling Defender for Cloud at the resource group level, rather than only at the subscription level, would be beneficial.
AnuragSrivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detailed visibility into threats but the ability to add exceptions needs improvement
One major item for improvement is the ability to add exceptions. We can add some exceptions, but not at the level we need to. The second major area for improvement involves enhanced capabilities for different operating systems or platforms. That is, even though we have coverage for different operating systems or platforms such as Linux, we don't get all of the controls and enhanced capabilities that are available with Windows devices. Reporting could also be improved because, at present, we get limited results at times. For example, in an environment with more than 100,000 devices, you may just get 10,000 results when you run a report.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How is Prisma Cloud vs Azure Security Center for security?
Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The cost is generally reasonable. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Plan 2 costs $15 per server, per month. For a normal customer with ten to twenty servers, the cost is about $300 per month, which is a...
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

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.