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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs N-able EDR 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

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)
N-able EDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
47th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 7.3%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able EDR is 0.6%, up from 0.3% 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%
N-able EDR0.6%
Other92.1%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
NM
Senior Operations Specialist at Tagit cc
Reporting effectiveness and advanced AI capabilities improve threat awareness while needing pricing simplification and licensing self-service
With pricing, they can improve by bundling their pricing because sometimes billing comes in a very long process. If they could bundle it as one solution and show the capabilities or features, they would be able to sell it more effectively, and as resellers, we could sell it to customers more easily. The technical support is responsive, but sometimes we experience limitations regarding the ability to add licensing. They could implement a self-service platform for assigning new licenses or ordering more. Currently, we depend on contacting someone who sends a new contract to sign through the process. They could change their licensing model, though I am not the right person to comment on functionality. On the reporting side, everything is covered.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is good."
"Microsoft Defender is always running. It is doing its job, so it is fine. I don't have any issues with the way it was implemented or how we are running it. We have been upgrading IT throughout the years, but there have been no issues."
"A few years ago, when I was using a different product, I was affected by a virus that destroyed everything. Since using Microsoft Defender, I have not had this kind of problem."
"The automatic attack disruption feature in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint works great."
"I find the entire Microsoft Defender for Endpoint valuable because it finds not just definition-based threats but also behaviors."
"Coming from an organization where the EDR wasn't strong, it has always been a case of basically searching through the information you already have and looking for something. It was basically trying to find the needle in a haystack. What the Defender platform does is that it reduces the size of the haystack, and it'll say that the needle is over here. Minutes matter, and it certainly zeros you in on the events that are concerning. It also simplifies the effort of trying to get some kind of correlation of behaviors or actions you see in the environment and confirming if something is benign or a threat."
"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."
"We have very good visibility on our endpoints. The level of information it throws back is helpful."
"The most valuable features are the rollback feature, it's important for us. The AI models and are good."
"We have been using this solution for quite some time, and the AI functionality is quite advanced; we are able to provide insights on different aspects and read the reports easily."
"It provides visibility and a storyline to track the virus or malware's activities, showing infected processes and changes made."
"The most valuable feature, which I can describe as the '360 vision' of the inventory device, provides a complete view of all the devices."
"The most valuable feature, which I can describe as the '360 vision' of the inventory device, provides a complete view of all the devices."
 

Cons

"The end-user also cannot do some advanced actions on it. It's a little bit complicated for our end-user, so it needs to be simplified."
"It would be nice to have a paid upgrade that would provide additional screening of the day-to-day activities."
"I think the overall portal of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could be improved; sometimes there's moving around to different spots and it's a little hard to navigate, so getting used to that was perhaps the biggest hurdle."
"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."
"Windows Firewall is integrated with Windows Defender. Over the last few days, I have had a problem with defining a wildcard on Windows Firewall. For example, I wanted to pull out the connection of my program and install a software package with a lot of executable files. I wanted to prevent it from accessing the internet. I could not select executables by using a wildcard. I had to select a single executable with its full name."
"They should come up with pre-built inner workflows."
"Reporting could be improved. I would like to see how many security incidents occurred in the last six months, how many devices were highly exposed to security risks, and how many devices were actually compromised."
"It seems there are challenges associated with IP addresses at times."
"Concerning the license, if I add one more device without a license, it will automatically subscribe to a license. I do not appreciate that."
"I would like to see them add support for both Android and iOS smartphones."
"With pricing, they can improve by bundling their pricing because sometimes billing comes in a very long process."
"I would rate the scalability as seven out of ten. The capability is useful. Concerning the license, if I add one more device without a license, it will automatically subscribe to a license. I do not appreciate that."
"We have a lot of false positives we see in the dashboard. I think this is the only problem we are facing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The normal, standalone model, is not expensive, but the enterprise model that includes the bundle with email and some web protection, is a bit more expensive."
"The solution comes as a part of Windows 10 and it is covered under its license."
"We have the E5 security license, and the solution comes with that."
"We mostly use Microsoft products. We use Office 365, and we use Azure. We're also a Microsoft partner. So, the licensing was much cheaper for us, and at the same time, a lot of the features that we were looking for were included in Defender."
"There are different licenses, such as E3 and E5."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes with Windows 10, and it's free. But for you to be able to manage it in the cloud and use the console, you need to have either an Office 365 E5 subscription or a Microsoft M365 subscription. You need to buy an extra license."
"Currently, for us, Windows Defender is free with the purchase of Windows Server. Pricing is an important point for us when we are looking at the competitors of this solution. If we choose to go with another vendor, we will have to pay some license fees."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"The pricing is average."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
Non Profit
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What needs improvement with N-able EDR?
With pricing, they can improve by bundling their pricing because sometimes billing comes in a very long process. If they could bundle it as one solution and show the capabilities or features, they ...
What is your primary use case for N-able EDR?
We are using N-able EDR, but I think Sophos makes sense because of the environment we operate in. The localization and different elements were important factors we were looking at. They have their ...
What advice do you have for others considering N-able EDR?
I am more focused on operations and procurement. The decision to use this solution was made before I joined the company. It started with patch management systems and progressed into EDR, backup mon...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. N-able EDR and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.