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Microsoft Defender for Identity vs NetMon comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Iden...
Ranking in Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (8th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th)
NetMon
Ranking in Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (48th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 9.5%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetMon is 2.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Identity9.5%
NetMon2.3%
Other88.2%
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
 

Featured Reviews

CM
Technology Coordinator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Helps detect threats faster and prioritize critical security tasks with increased visibility
The feature I value most about Microsoft Defender for Identity is the ability to see where people are attempting to log in from. Microsoft Defender for Identity helps me automate routine tasks and find alerts that I set up to receive, so it helps me get where I'm trying to go easier and faster. I can see where everything is at. Microsoft Defender for Identity helps me prioritize important tasks. If I get an alert for a user who downloaded an application that is not sanctioned, I normally go straight to that user's computer device to find the device name and the user. Now I can get to them much faster. Microsoft Defender for Identity saves me time overall. I can quantify the time saved by Microsoft Defender for Identity as maybe 25 minutes, or if expressed as a percentage, maybe 20 to 25%. Some of the learning curve and actually learning what these products do takes time to figure out. Microsoft Defender for Identity definitely helps decrease the time of detection and response.
SR
Pan India IT Infrastructure Management / End-user Services at Tata Group
Has supported real-time event detection and reporting accuracy while database integration has required extra effort
Sometimes it may be difficult to incorporate new additional databases in NetMon, and we faced some challenges at that time. However, currently, it is not giving many challenges.It is difficult to integrate NetMon with other databases. We can customize NetMon's monitoring views, but it is done by the team who handles it, as it is outsourced.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is security monitoring, which detects and investigates suspicious user activities. It can easily detect advanced attacks based on the behavior. The credentials are securely stored, so it reduces the risk of compromise. It will monitor user behavior based on artificial intelligence to protect the identities in your organization. It will even help secure the on-premise Active Directory. It syncs from the cloud to on-premise, and on-premise modifications will be reflected in the cloud."
"The advanced threat protection is one of the strengths of Microsoft Defender for Identity, as it utilizes user and entity analytics and can detect indicative attacks."
"Microsoft Defender for Identity helps me automate routine tasks and find alerts that I set up to receive, so it helps me get where I'm trying to go easier and faster."
"Defender for Identity has not affected the end-user experience."
"It automates routine testing and helps automate the finding of high-value alerts."
"The most valuable feature is its hybrid artificial intelligence, which gathers forensic data to track and counteract security threats, much like the CSI series in effect."
"I recommend Microsoft Defender for Identity because it is easy to implement."
"The solution’s alerting is fairly efficient."
"We were sold on the product based on the fairly narrow use cases that the sales reps gave us, and what we're seeing during our usage is that we can get there, and we're very excited about the potential."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"It has a very strong artificial intelligence engine."
"But just having it there, it's incredibly smart, incredibly easy to use, and the breadth of information we get off it is really good for investigations for us."
"In general, this is a good product."
"The protocols with which you see the traffic for a particular website that a client has in their environment, for example, are valuable. We can monitor whether the traffic is up to the mark or whether they need to add more bandwidth. Also, we can see if we're able to get real-time environment data as well. The customization dashboard is really good. LogRhythm NetMon has its own in-built dashboards which are helpful in guiding customization."
"We are using NetMon's real-time traffic analysis regularly with a team of four members who effectively monitor all alerts and events, which has helped them identify whether there could be a severe incident."
"LogRhythm NetMon's most impressive feature is that it's a bundled package, so you're not just relying on monthly data; you get a six-month view for more comprehensive indicators of compromise. This dual approach is precious. We implement LogRhythm NetMon in our cybersecurity strategy mainly for compliance and correlation of network, user, and decision activities, particularly for network firewalls and access control."
 

Cons

"For users operating in mixed environments, while Defender for Identity offers robust protection for on-premises AD, additional solutions or configurations might be necessary to ensure seamless security management across Azure and on-premises AD systems."
"We observe a lot of false positives. Sometimes, when we go for a coffee break, we lock our screens. Locking the screen has a separate Windows event ID and sometimes I see it is detected as a failed login."
"An area for improvement is the administrative interface. It's basic compared to other administrative centers. They could make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"The documentation provided by Microsoft is often seen as a waste of time."
"One potential area for improvement could be exploring flexibility in the installation of Microsoft Defender for Identity agents."
"The tracking instance needs to be configured appropriately."
"Microsoft should look at what competing vendors like CrowdStrike and Broadcom are doing and incorporate those features into Sentinel and Defender. At the same time, I think the intelligence inside the product is improving fast. They should incorporate more zero-trust and hybrid trust approaches. They need to build up threat intelligence based on threats and methods used in attacks on other companies."
"I can't say that I've seen a return on investment since we have Microsoft Defender for Identity because we also have another security solution in place."
"There is an issue with tunneling in relation to how the connectivity is established between the end devices and where NetMon is installed. On the console, I often observe that there's a difference of a few seconds or maybe a minute, and this lag time should not be there."
"The main concern is that LogRhythm has not improved NetMon but instead introduced a separate product, which many customers, including us, would prefer to be integrated into a single platform for easier management."
"LogRhythm NetMon's pricing model is an area of concern that should be made a little bit cheaper in comparison to the other players in the market currently."
"LogRhythm's support team isn't responsive enough - it's common to wait a day or two for someone to deal with a case."
"I would like to see better integration with multiple products. Integration is not something that is readily available for most of the products."
"Some of the automated tasks we can perform on QRadar cannot be performed on LogRhythm because the solution has limitations."
"Their technical support isn't so great."
"Our customers would always like to see additional features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is costly, and we had multiple discussions with accounting to receive a discounted rate. However, on the open market, the tool is expensive."
"Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."
"You won't be able to change your tenants from where you deploy them. For example, if you select Canada, they will charge you based on Canadian pricing. If you are also in London, when you deploy in Canada, the pound is higher than Canadian dollars, but your platform resources are billable in Canadian dollars. Using your pounds to pay for any of these things will be cheaper. Or, if you deploy in London, they will charge you based on your local currency."
"Microsoft Defender for Identity comes as part of the Microsoft E5 licensing stack."
"It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."
"The product is expensive for smaller companies."
"The price of this solution is too high, so it should be made more practical and more valuable for the customer."
"Pricing is okay. There were some competitors that were extremely expensive and there were some which were really inexpensive but LogRhythm stayed in the middle of them."
"LogRhythm's licensing part is something that depends on the license you want since they offer it on a perpetual and subscription basis."
"NetMon's licensing costs about $85k per year, with some extra costs for support."
"I don't have visibility into the pricing of LogRhythm NetMon as it's handled through our commercial partnerships."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) solutions are best for your needs.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
10%
Transportation Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I really would have to sit down to think about how Microsoft Defender for Identity can be improved. I didn't take stock in what needs to be improved because I appreciated having the tools right the...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Identity include Conditional Access, checking risky users, remediating risky users, and user sign-ins. I can easily remediate or determine what the user...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I don't really use Microsoft Defender for Identity a lot because my new role doesn't allow me to take time to do so. I don't really use the threat intelligence feature of Microsoft Defender for Ide...
What needs improvement with LogRhythm NetMon?
Sometimes it may be difficult to incorporate new additional databases in NetMon, and we faced some challenges at that time. However, currently, it is not giving many challenges.It is difficult to i...
What is your primary use case for LogRhythm NetMon?
We have outsourced our SIEM solutions at the moment, and we are using it.We have been using LogRhythm in our organization as a SaaS offering. We have outsourced it as part of the actual scope where...
What advice do you have for others considering LogRhythm NetMon?
We use AWS as our cloud provider in a private cloud environment.It completely depends upon when incidents happen. To find the root cause analysis, we need to first gather the logs from the team. It...
 

Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
LogRhythm Network Monitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Sera-Brynn
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. NetMon and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.