Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Veritas Alta SaaS Protection comparison

Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Veritas Alta SaaS Protection

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Helped 894,738 peers since 2012

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 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)

8th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsoft Security Suite (5th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)

Veritas Alta SaaS Protection

Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)

27th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

SaaS Backup (18th), SaaS Management Platforms (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 3.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veritas Alta SaaS Protection is 1.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Identity	3.6%
Veritas Alta SaaS Protection	1.6%
Other	94.8%

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)

Featured Reviews

Oluwa Adetunji

CyberSecurity Engineer | Information Security Management at Self Employed

Automation and threat intelligence streamline threat response and user management

In Microsoft Defender for Identity, I would appreciate improvements in providing information on conditional access. They have added more control that can be put in place, which was not present years ago. They have also integrated Azure Information Protection where policies can be configured. The Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) allows users to reset their passwords, which is a valuable tool for remote workers. They have added more features into conditional access that integrate with other components, including SSPR and Identity Information Protection, trusted IPs, and locations. These configurations in trusted IP addresses are integrated into conditional access and control the applications I want to secure. Regarding impossible travel scenarios, I can either block the user or grant access while requesting multi-factor authentication. They should improve the automation for impossible travel detection. When connected to Wi-Fi and then to VPN, the system sometimes interprets the IP address change as impossible travel. If Microsoft could develop a feature that indicates when impossible travel is caused by VPN connections, it would prevent unnecessary password resets and session disruptions, especially for VIP users in organizations.

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Sammy Githinji

Technical Manager at Rigor Systems Limited

Experience with offsite backup enhances data integrity and reduces on-premise reliance

One of the features of Veritas Alta SaaS Protection that customers are looking for is immutability. This is the most important feature. With the cloud, Veritas Alta SaaS Protection is actually in the cloud, which means they have unlimited space to do their backups. They can expand on a need-to-need basis. The automated recovery feature of Veritas Alta SaaS Protection makes the recovery much easier, as opposed to earlier methods where we were using scripts to do the restore. Currently, it's automated so you just do a click. You select the feature in a graphical interface, making it easy to use even for a newbie.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature I like most is that you can create your own customized detection rules. It has a lot of default alerts and rules, but you can customize them according to your business needs."

"It gives you a holistic view of everything happening in your organization, and you can use it to do a lot of monitoring."

"The solution’s alerting is fairly efficient."

"The solution offers excellent visibility into threats."

"The feature I like the most about Defender for Identity is the entity tags. They give you the ability to identify sensitive accounts, devices, and groups. You also have honeytoken entities, which are devices that are identified as "bait" for fraudulent actors."

"One of our users had the same password for every personal and company account. That was a problem because she started receiving phishing emails that could compromise all of her accounts. Defender told us that the user was not changing their password."

"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."

"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."

More Microsoft Defender for Identity pros

"Some of the tool's best features include an enhanced dashboard and strong security features compared to native Veritas. Our environment is entirely automated."

"Veritas is loaded with features because the appliance is ready to integrate with the cloud in cases where the customers have a hybrid or cloud environment."

"What I like most about Veritas SaaS Backup is that it is easy to work on."

"The solution is stable; I haven't experienced any bugs or glitches on it."

"It offers general business continuity and disaster recovery for the industry."

"The duplication is the solution's most valuable feature."

"The solution is quite stable, and we haven't had any problems over the past five years of use."

"We're comfortable using this kind of technology; it's user-friendly."

More Veritas Alta SaaS Protection pros

Cons

"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."

"They should improve the automation for impossible travel detection. When connected to Wi-Fi and then to VPN, the system sometimes interprets the IP address change as impossible travel."

"One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform to promptly alert affected users and their friends."

"The areas of Microsoft Defender for Identity that can be improved include its cost, which is quite expensive when integrated into Sentinel. Additionally, there is room for improvement in its integration with non-Microsoft applications and systems."

"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."

"And when you are working in a priority IP address, Identity is not able to know that those IPs are from the company. It sees that the IPs are from Taiwan or from Hong Kong or from India, even though they are internal IPs, resulting in a lot of false positives."

"I would like to be able to do remediation from the platform because it is just a scanner right now. If you onboard a device, it shows you what is happening, but you can't use it to fix things. You need to go into the system to fix it instead."

"The documentation provided by Microsoft is often seen as a waste of time."

More Microsoft Defender for Identity cons

"In the future, we would like to see support for virtualized machines."

"When you finish a project, the client should have the opportunity to browse the files rather than simply ending the contract."

"The implementation could be improved. The server setup is very easy, but some specific client implementation, for example, Oracle or SQL servers, are a little bit complicated."

"Currently, it isn't possible to use anything other than Veritas cloud to back up to. I think today it's important to cover the three major cloud provider: GCP, Azure and AWS."

"The go-between is a Veritas partner, so the customer support was not that good."

"The backup reports and the dashboard need improvement."

"An area for improvement is the product's performance, especially how long it takes to do a job."

More Veritas Alta SaaS Protection cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender for Identity comes as part of the Microsoft E5 licensing stack."

"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."

"Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."

"It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."

"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."

"SaaS Backup isn't the most expensive solution."

"The program is quite expensive."

"This solution is not cheap and not expensive but priced in the mid-range."

"I would rate this solution's pricing as five out of five."

"The tool is expensive compared to Veeam."

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894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Veritas Alto SaaS Protection?

Veritas Alta SaaS Protection is slightly expensive, but they can do more on it. The exact figure for Veritas Alta SaaS Protection depends on the size of data being stored, the region, and the type ...

What needs improvement with Veritas Alto SaaS Protection?

For Veritas Alta SaaS Protection, the only challenge is downtime and the impact of time synchronization whereby different customers are on different time zones, and Veritas Alta SaaS Protection is ...

What is your primary use case for Veritas Alto SaaS Protection?

For the customers that I'm dealing with, they are using Veritas Alta SaaS Protection for long-term retention and offline backups. This means they don't have to constrain their on-premise resources....

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender for Identity

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SentinelOne Singularity Identity vs Microsoft Defender for Identity

Compared 4% of the time

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Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 vs Veritas Alta SaaS Protection

Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Veritas Alta SaaS Protection

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AvePoint Cloud Backup vs Veritas Alta SaaS Protection

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Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Identity

Download Microsoft Defender for Identity product report

Veritas Alta SaaS Protection

Download Veritas Alta SaaS Protection product report

Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity

SaaS Backup

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Identity offers real-time threat detection and protection for hybrid Active Directory environments. It integrates with Microsoft 365 components for seamless security and monitors advanced behaviors, enhancing identity protection across cloud and on-premises environments.

Microsoft Defender for Identity provides detailed threat insights and user behavior analytics to detect unauthorized access and notify anomalies. It allows setting custom detection rules, enhancing threat response automation. While it needs improvements in cloud security, SIEM integration, and access controls, users leverage its ability to mitigate identity threats like suspicious logins and ransomware. Enhanced integration with Microsoft security products ensures a coordinated threat response for identity control and privilege management.

What are the key features of Microsoft Defender for Identity?

Active Directory Federation: Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365 for comprehensive security.
Real-time Security Monitoring: Provides immediate insights into advanced user behaviors and potential threats.
Threat Insights: Delivers detailed analysis of threats with the ability to customize detection rules.
User Behavior Analytics: Analyzes user activities to detect anomalies and potential risks.
Identity Protection: Offers comprehensive protection in both cloud and on-premises environments.

What benefits should users expect from reviews of Microsoft Defender for Identity?

Unauthorized Access Prevention: Identifies potential unauthorized activities with advanced detection mechanisms.
Anomaly Notification: Alerts users to unexpected activities within their environments.
Threat Response Automation: Facilitates rapid response to threats with automated solutions.
Enhanced Cloud Security: Strengthens identity management across hybrid and cloud frameworks.

In specific industries, organizations implement Microsoft Defender for Identity to secure on-premises and hybrid Active Directory environments through user and entity behavior analytics, malicious activity detection, and integration with Microsoft security tools. This approach enhances security posture assessment and helps mitigate identity threats like identity harvesting and unauthorized access.

Microsoft

Veritas Alta SaaS Protection delivers simplicity, robust duplication, and extensive Office 365 support. It integrates seamlessly with EMC, offers competitive pricing, automated recovery, and a user-friendly interface. Users benefit from its comprehensive capabilities and automated processes.

Veritas Alta SaaS Protection is distinguished by its high-end dashboard, security features, and immutability functionality. It supports hybrid and cloud environments, providing extensive storage and easy configuration. Stability and non-intrusive resource use enhance user satisfaction, while organizations primarily employ it for backing up Office 365 environments, Linux servers, and virtual machines. Offering data protection, disaster recovery, and business continuity, Veritas aids in long-term retention and offline backups, cutting dependency on on-premise resources and infrastructure. It supports migrations to SharePoint and centralizes backup operations efficiently.

What are the key features of Veritas Alta SaaS Protection?

Simplicity of Use: Designed to be intuitive, reducing learning time and operational costs.
Office 365 Coverage: Comprehensive module support enhances cloud-based collaborations.
Seamless Integration with EMC: Ensures compatibility and enhances capabilities.
Automated Recovery: Streamlines restoration ensuring quick data access.
Security Features: Strong security architecture safeguards sensitive data.
Immutability Functionality: Protects data against unauthorized changes or deletions.

What benefits should users consider in user reviews?

Stability: Consistent performance reduces downtime risks.
Ease of Administration: Simplifies management with minimal intervention.
Non-Intrusive Resource Use: Efficient operation reduces system load.
Comprehensive Capabilities: Wide-ranging features meet diverse business needs.

Veritas Alta SaaS Protection is employed across industries for secure data protection and recovery, particularly in sectors requiring reliable Office 365 integration, such as education and healthcare. Organizations in these sectors benefit from the solution's automated processes and centralized backup to maintain business continuity and data empowerment. Companies also utilize Veritas for efficient infrastructure transition, enabling them to migrate to cloud-based systems seamlessly.

Veritas

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.

Information Not Available

Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Veritas Alta SaaS Protection