CrowdStrike Falcon vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
CrowdStrike Falcon
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
CrowdStrike offers the Falcon Endpoint Protection suite, an antivirus and endpoint protection system emphasizing threat detection, machine learning malware detection, and signature free updating. Additionally the available Falcon Spotlight module delivers vulnerability assessment with no performance impact, no additional agents, hardware, scheduled scans, firewall exceptions or admin credentials.
$59.99
per endpoint/month (minimum number of endpoints applies)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) for Azure, on-premises, and multicloud (Amazon AWS and Google GCP) resources.N/A
Pricing
CrowdStrike FalconMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Editions & Modules
Falcon Go (Small Business)
$59.99
per endpoint/month (minimum number of endpoints applies)
Falcon Go (Small Business)
$59.99
Falcon Pro
$99.99
per endpoint/month (for 5-250 endpoints, billed annually)
Falcon Enterprise
$184.99
per endpoint/month (minimum number of endpoints applies)
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CrowdStrike FalconMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CrowdStrike FalconMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Considered Both Products
CrowdStrike Falcon
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
I have evaluated Cortex XDR and SentinelOne Singularity alongside CrowdStrike Falcon, and while all three are capable enterprise-grade solutions, Falcon ultimately stood out due to its cloud-native architecture, broader modular coverage, and stronger identity-focused detection. …
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
It was just a legacy AV program onboarded during initial setup days. As the org. As it expanded, its threat landscape also grew, and we needed a next-gen solution to protect against evolving threat vectors. Falcon EDR was the one that solved all these in a single place.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
The POC they did for us convinced us of everything we could achieve with CrowdStrike Falcon and how advanced the integration with other solutions was.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon blows the competition out of the water. The depth of granular detail that is provided about each endpoint is unmatched.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon provides advanced threat hunting techniques and advanced threat and endpoint detection response
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike is a very easy tool to manage. There is only one agent that is needed to deploy. This makes management much easier.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
Depends on your network architecture.. NDR can be very expensive. EDR works on almost all network architectures, even those segmented networks. However if you rely on centralized switch and older style of network architecture, NDR should be asses and considered, especially if …
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
different solution. Where CrowdStrike gives us endpoint visibility and control, Darktrace gives us network visibility and control
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
Because it was a leader when we were shopping and many other agencies suggested that
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
We were a former Arctic Wolf customer and feel like they worked more as a team with us. Cylance is what we're looking at possibly migrating to.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
It stacks on top. We love the ease of use, the third-party integration, having AI, and the CrowdStrike team was way more helpful with our team, so that adoption was within a couple of months. We also compared prices, and the value was higher, with a faster ROI, which helps our …
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
There really wasn't a question. CrowdStrike is best in class and really doesn't have an equal in this space, any other threat protection vendor is a compromise in some area, and even though we are paying for the premier service, we can feel comfortable and protected with our …
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
Sentinelone is bit complicated language use in there console in compare to CrowdStrike Falcon. CrowdStrike Falcon have much big modules and features but sentinelone don't. CrowdStrike Falcon have one single unified agent and in sentinelone bit confused in selection of agent …
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike is by far the superior product as we have had zero problems since installing compared to Trend where is positively failed us. We switched and again have had zero issues with the product and it protects our environment as it should without much interaction.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
Falcon EDR is a popular cloud-native endpoint security solution that businesses employ to protect against contemporary cyberthreats.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon is way ahead of Symantec, and covers features that defender XDR doesn't, even if you purchase all the addons. I think the only real competitors are Sentinel One, maybe Palo Alto or Huntress, or Carbon Black.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
In my opinion, CrowdStrike Falcon provides superior detection and prevention capabilities over Jamf Protect. At the time we purchased (2017) CrowdStrike Falcon was more advanced than SentinelOne and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon is far superior in all aspects. I love the features and support they provide.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon is an industry leader in this sector and is superior in its low overhead agent, having minimal impact on end-users. We plan to migrate our macOS fleet when our existing contract expires.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
We felt that CrowdStrike had a more comprehensive security tool set and the overall cost for CrowdStrike was less than those other solutions.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
Advance detection capability.Overwatch threat hunt team which proactively hunts your environment Interactive sandbox. Reduced false positives & ease of whitelisting to granular level.AI and ML can analyze events to identify subtle patterns that might indicate malicious …
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
In my opinion,
CrowdStrike Falcon does a better job of detection than Carbon black in all forms. Compared to SentinelOne XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon does a better job of finding potential threats even though the machine learning based detection cause more False Positives than the …
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
It is superior on the following two: Advanced threat detection because AI and ML can analyze vast amounts of data to identify subtle patterns that might indicate malicious activity, even zero-day attacks (previously unknown threats).Reduced false positives because it can help …
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
It’s provides all of what the other solutions offered individually and at a better price.
Chose CrowdStrike Falcon
At the time of purchase CrowdStrike provided the best featureset and value proposition for the organisation. The cloud first nature of the product and the mix of heuristic and behaviour based detection technologies was better than anything else that we looked at.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Because we do a profound review of functionalities, configurations, and security operations from our soft team's perspective. The best one that adapts to our actual architecture, and I mean it's so negative for us because we are more prone to Microsoft products, was Microsoft …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Competitive-wise, we've looked at Palo Alto and Proofpoint. So we selected Microsoft Defender for Cloud on the basis it was linking closer to the identity, but we've had to also, I said earlier that we've aligned with Palo Alto for the secondary tech to look at it from a device …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Barracuda goes neck to neck with Microsoft Defender for Cloud in the anti-spam, anti-phishing email suite. But why I chose this product is because again, it's very well embedded with Microsoft technology, and we're a Microsoft shop, and it works well for us to use that product …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Although it meets our needs, we decided to go for it because of the confidence we already had in the other tools.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
We haven't really, I mean we've used Google's options, but not really. We've just gotten demos really.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
We were one of the first ones to deploy when Microsoft released it, so it's hard to compare, but what we hear from competitors, the fact that Microsoft can see the full ecosystem using this product makes it a lot better as compared to using a third party tool. So it's the ease …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
I was trained on AWS originally, but I'm starting to Azure more and more in Microsoft.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Evaluated between cost. I just think it integrates better with the Microsoft stack and I mean, I think just cost from just that perspective and being the one pane of glass, I think that's enough.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Had some coverage gaps and was more expensive compared to native Azure security controls, such as Defender for Cloud.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Trend Micro Cloud One - Application Security, AWS Security Hub and Wiz
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
I believe Microsoft Defender for Cloud stacks up well against the other tools we looked at. It is native to the Azure platform and provides the same insights as the other tools. We selected Microsoft Defender for Cloud because it integrates well with the Azure resources and …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Defender is a robust cloud security solution, but Prisma is Comprehensive cloud-native security platform with full lifecycle security
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft Defender for Cloud has a better range of functionality across the board. In terms of database, reliability, security solutions.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
We use Microsoft Defender for Cloud as an integration of Defender 365 and collect all the incident into one dashboard.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft Defender for Cloud offered a more integrated and comprehensive solution for our multi-cloud environment, integrating well with our security and compliance needs
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is definitely the choice with the latest market trend and attacks that are currently happening. Microsoft has been able to safe guard a lot after the recent serious attacks happening globally in the digital world. There is a trust in this software …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Forcepoint ONE, Ivanti Endpoint Security for Endpoint Manager and Tenable Nessus
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
There is the several ways to protect the applications and lot more tools available in the market. Most commonly we used Crowd strike Falcon for endpoint detection and response capabilities. McAfee endpoint protection also provide broad range of security features. Best …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
We used to use Symantec and McAfee. It's been mostly defenders since, gosh, the last eight to 10 years. So we're a small organization. We don't have a lot of folks, so single-painted glass is really important to be able to see the whole environment in a single place. And the …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
When we purchase this data fund, we check with not competition and we decided to purchase these tools because it's strong and we have a good relationship with Microsoft.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
It is very good in comparison to other products that we have used. Its price is very effective and attractive, and it also provides good security policies. threat intelligence is also good and user protection is also very much better, and it also serves new updates as and when …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
It provides great Integration with the existing resources. As we don’t have to worry about the compatibility of the product with our resources.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Defender for Office 365
Chose Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Defender has the benefit of all the integration, included licensing for defender for server and being able to start small and grow.

Wiz licensing was too expensive, lacking features like an EDR making it a less favorable solution
Features
CrowdStrike FalconMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Endpoint Security
Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
CrowdStrike Falcon
8.8
Ratings
3% above category average
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
-
Ratings
Anti-Exploit Technology9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)9.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Centralized Management8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Hybrid Deployment Support8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Infection Remediation8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Vulnerability Management7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Malware Detection9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CrowdStrike FalconMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Small Businesses
ThreatLocker
ThreatLocker
Score 9.1 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
Score 9.1 out of 10
CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management
Score 10.0 out of 10
CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CrowdStrike FalconMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CrowdStrike FalconMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
CrowdStrike Falcon is ideal for large, cloud-native enterprises that prioritize advanced behavioral detection and have a mature SOC to manage their intelligence. However, its cloud-reliant architecture makes it a poor fit for air-gapped or offline networks. Additionally, small organizations with limited staffing may find it difficult to manage, while teams that require integrated SOAR and vulnerability management might be discouraged by the need for additional licensing to unlock those capabilities.
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Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very good at allowing users to see how their Azure environment is secure through the secure score. The recommendations are an excellent source of the controls that should be in place to ensure a secure environment. There needs to be more protection and features for data security.
Read full review
Pros
  • The Log analysis is very detailed and easy to use.
  • Prevent and block all type of malwares.
  • Great threat intelligence which is very up-to-date with the recent cyber attacks
  • very user friendly in access and management
  • Automated feature of detecting, taking action and closing incidents using fusion workflow.
Read full review
  • Automation is crucial to managing sprawl and the additional complexity that comes with it. SOC management workbooks and process automation give significant flexibility.
  • The Security posture score and Security Alerts are neatly centralized and offer me crucial information quickly.
  • Defender for Cloud avoids the common compromise of simplicity for completeness (former Azure Security Center). The security warnings and advice go into great detail while remaining current and useful.
Read full review
Cons
  • The Dashboard can become overwhelming at times, too much information to absorb
  • Computers that may have made it out into the field without the endpoint sensor are very difficult to find
  • As with all systems that rely on machine learning false positives occurr
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  • UI/UX. It can get a little messy when navigating around with all the flyouts in the Azure portal which can be frustrating, particularly when under time pressure.
  • The query languages for the queries and workbooks are another language that needs to be learned - it would be nice to have kept it closer to T-SQL or something like that to minimize the need to learn new syntax.
  • Adding cost estimations to the security recommendations would really improve the experience.
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Likelihood to Renew
Crowdstrike has a large suite of tools built for helping the engineers triage and respond to security event whenever identified. The ability to customize the security policies and implement more granular policies to different devices based on the functionality is unmatched. Crowdstrike provides so much of ability in a decent budget which ascertains the value for money or ROI.
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It is a great product that integrates nicely when running an Azure platform and even multi-cloud environment. Not looking for point-solutions but a suite that answers most requirements. It is very comfortable being able to use KQL, workbooks and automation that is native to the azure platform
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Usability
I think it is a complete and very trustful XDR platform, with very few False Positives. It is very well supported by highly skilled professionals on all levels: from pre-sales engineers, Customer Account Managers and support engineers.
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My visibility is limited because I'm only doing very small pieces of what the overall org does. And also, we have limitations on what we're allowed to use. It's not like we get a new product as users or leadership level users, and everything is on, and we can just do whatever we want. We're very restricted in what we can use any tooling within the org because of the different levels of regulatory constraints we have, because of just the nature of who we are inherently. So that's why. I don't think it's necessarily the product. I think it's more or less of what we're able to do with the product.
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Support Rating
Support is generally pretty fast and gets right to the issue. We haven't had to use them much, fortunately, but the issues and questions we've had are usually answered quickly. The customer success manager/account manager you're assigned will also follow up with you on a regular cadence to ensure you're getting the most out of the subscription. There's not a whole lot of room to improve, other than the general confusion about what is/what is not covered in custom packages you're subscribed to. The initial purchase took much longer because of a package name changes and realignments of different modules into those packages.
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No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
There is limited amount of learning that can be completed in an in-person training available. In my opinion, the self-paced learning provided by Falcon portal is more useful over in-person training. The support from Falcon is great and useful to overcome difficulties, if any.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
The training provided by Crowdstrike Falcon is complete in terms of the depth of technical knowledge and teaches the users about going through with the platform. There are lots of jargons for different tools that Crowdstrike Falcon has and this training teaches them all which helps in managing the platform better. Plus, the regular knowledge checks are also very helpful for the end user.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Read the documentation
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
I have evaluated Cortex XDR and SentinelOne Singularity alongside CrowdStrike Falcon, and while all three are capable enterprise-grade solutions, Falcon ultimately stood out due to its cloud-native architecture, broader modular coverage, and stronger identity-focused detection. Cortex XDR performs very well in environments already heavily invested in the Palo Alto ecosystem, particularly for network-to-endpoint correlation, but it introduces additional complexity and infrastructure overhead. SentinelOne excels in autonomous remediation and offline protection, especially with ransomware rollback, but is more endpoint-centric and comparatively limited in native identity and exposure-risk context. CrowdStrike Falcon provided the best overall balance by combining NGAV, EDR, identity protection, exposure management, threat intelligence, and managed hunting within a single lightweight agent and unified console, enabling better scalability, faster investigations, reduced tool sprawl, and stronger protection against modern identity-driven attacks, making it the most aligned choice for our security and operational objectives.
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Barracuda goes neck to neck with Microsoft Defender for Cloud in the anti-spam, anti-phishing email suite. But why I chose this product is because again, it's very well embedded with Microsoft technology, and we're a Microsoft shop, and it works well for us to use that product and have better visibility versus Barracuda being just an offshore, just a single product versus Microsoft Defender for Cloud being blended with other applications.
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Return on Investment
  • Due to some of the difficulties with Support and Sales, we are likely looking to change to another vendor. We sometimes don't feel like customers.
  • When the bluescreen incident occurred (worldwide outage) in July 2024, we were unable to contact support due to the high volume of calls at the same time. We had to figure out how to remediate it ourselves, which we did, and recovered before the vendor's official release of fixes. It shook my confidence in them.
  • The product itself performed well over the last 2 years, which has kept us safe and productive. The product is good.
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  • Ensuring compliance with data protection regulations can prevent costly fines and legal issues, positively impacting ROI.
  • Effective cloud resource protection can optimize cloud spending and resource utilization, ultimately reducing cloud infrastructure costs.
  • The subscription costs associated with Defender for Cloud can add to an organization's operational expenses, impacting ROI.
  • Smaller organizations may find the feature set and complexity of Defender for Cloud unnecessary, potentially overinvesting in security solutions.
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ScreenShots

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Remediation of critical issues in codeScreenshot of Cloud security benchmark mapped to industry FramworksScreenshot of Prioritization of critical risks with contextual threat analysisScreenshot of Workload protectionScreenshot of Unified DevOps VisibilityScreenshot of Visualizations to improve security posture proactively