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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Sophos Intercept X

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint (formerly Microsoft Defender ATP) is a holistic, cloud delivered endpoint security solution that includes risk-based vulnerability management and assessment, attack surface reduction, behavioral based and cloud-powered next generation protection, endpoint detection and response (EDR), automatic investigation and remediation, managed hunting services, rich APIs, and unified security management.

    $2.50

    per user/per month

    Sophos Intercept X

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/ASophos Endpoint Protection (Sophos EPP) with Intercept X is an endpoint security product providing an antivirus / antimalware solution that when upgraded with Intercept X or Intercept X Advanced provides advanced threat detection and EDR capabilities.

    $28

    per year per user

    Pricing
    Microsoft Defender for CloudMicrosoft Defender for EndpointSophos Intercept X
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Academic
    $2.50
    per user/per month
    Standalone
    $5.20
    per user/per month
    Intercept X Advanced
    $28
    per year per user
    Intercept X Advanced with XDR
    $48
    per year per user
    Sophos Managed Threat Response
    $79
    per year per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft Defender for CloudMicrosoft Defender for EndpointSophos Intercept X
    Free Trial
    YesYesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——Pricing is for a 3-year commitment. Government and Education pricing available.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft Defender for CloudMicrosoft Defender for EndpointSophos Intercept X
    Considered Multiple Products
    Microsoft
    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
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    CrowdStrike Falcon is also a good solution for endpoint protection which offer EDR Soultion, threat hunting and AI driven threat protection. Sophos Intercept X combines next-gen antivirus with advanced EDR capabilities with its deep learning technology, exploit prevention, and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    SentinelOne, I want to say they're pretty equal. Some features in SentinelOne might have a little more superiority than Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, but then Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has features that overshadow SentinelOne. So they both have things that they do …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    As Microsoft Defender for Endpoint easily integrated with our Office 365 setup, it was more beneficial as compared to other products
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    I have been working with customers that they are transitioning from Sentinel One, CrowdStrike to Defender for Endpoint, right? So I think it's because they see the value in the product and also they see how much they can save in terms of the cost for companies because they …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint stacks up well against it competitors. It detects malicious files faster than other tools like CrowdStrike.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    Tenable Security Center was a fantastic exposure detection tool but there was always a lag and servers would hang alot when being scanned causing resource traffic. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on the other hand does not use up most resources soo there is usually noo lag …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    The fact it is integrated into the Microsoft 365 licensing our customers already purchase makes it an easy choice.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    It excels in detecting unusual behavior on endpoints, offering valuable insights into potential attack paths, and it operates with remarkable speed and responsiveness.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    At the time, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint was a comparable selection with SentinelOne, but won on one important consideration for Educational Use, cost. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint was including in our Microsoft Enterprise agreement meaning that there was no additional …
    Incentivized
    Sophos
    Chose Sophos Intercept X
    We found Sophos is a full suit in one, easy to deploy, manage and very effective.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    65 Answers
    96%
    Would buy again
    157 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    60 Answers
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    146 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    22 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    64 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    155 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    54 Answers
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    130 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    20 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    56 Answers
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    140 Answers
    90%
    Implementation went as expected
    19 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft Defender for CloudMicrosoft Defender for EndpointSophos Intercept X
    Endpoint Security
    Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Sophos Intercept X
    Feature
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    8.7
    79 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Sophos Intercept X
    8.2
    24 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Anti-Exploit Technology00 Ratings9.075 Ratings8.623 Ratings
    Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)00 Ratings9.179 Ratings8.024 Ratings
    Centralized Management00 Ratings8.679 Ratings8.024 Ratings
    Hybrid Deployment Support00 Ratings7.110 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Infection Remediation00 Ratings9.077 Ratings7.924 Ratings
    Vulnerability Management00 Ratings8.774 Ratings8.44 Ratings
    Malware Detection00 Ratings9.278 Ratings8.024 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft Defender for CloudMicrosoft Defender for EndpointSophos Intercept X
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    SentinelOne Singularity
    Score9 out of 10
    SentinelOne Singularity
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud
    Score8.9 out of 10
    BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud
    Score8.9 out of 10
    ESET PROTECT
    Score8.8 out of 10
    ESET PROTECT
    Score8.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft Defender for CloudMicrosoft Defender for EndpointSophos Intercept X
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (68 ratings)
    8.9
    (169 ratings)
    8.2
    (41 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.9
    (4 ratings)
    8.4
    (10 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.7
    (13 ratings)
    8.6
    (40 ratings)
    8.1
    (8 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.1
    (12 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft Defender for CloudMicrosoft Defender for EndpointSophos Intercept X
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    I think it's good for cloud-native companies. A company that, from day zero, they're like, "We're going cloud, and this is how we're going to do it." They get it. It works well for them. Smaller organizations that are under X amount of resources- I don't know what that X might mean- but I feel like it plays well in smaller, more nimble organizations. If you're an older organization or if you're extremely large, it starts becoming a little difficult to manage at scale. And you have to sometimes throw bodies at the problem. Maybe not the most eloquent way of saying it, but that's what it feels like.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    If you have multiple endpoints in your environment, if you're looking to understand what your environment looks like, if you're trying to identify the health of your environment, or identify any risks or vulnerabilities in your environment pertaining to your endpoints and devices.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    To be frank, this product is fairly expensive. So I would recommend this to companies that are mid-sized or larger to condone the cost of the purchase. It does save me a significant amount of time in my day - being able to glance at the dashboard and see if there are any outstanding issues that require my attention, as not much digging must be done to accomplish this. So for our company, with a short-staffed IT department, it's incredibly helpful to us. We also qualify for Educational pricing which brings the cost down - which helps tremendously
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • It's really well laid out, with an easy-to-use, accessible UI.
    • With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, it has everything you need with the Safelink attachment, the Safelink emails for URL, the way it scans those URLs and attachments within the product, and you're seeing the results. And that adds an extra layer of security for the user, so you feel comfortable knowing the product monitors those. That's something I really like about that product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The big thing for us is on endpoint, it kind of integrates with everything else that we already have because we use Microsoft completely. And so that helps us with being able to integrate, and send things over to Azure Sentinel as we need to as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    • Sophos Intercept X is great at preventing malware infections and rolling back their effects. I have seen this happen hundreds of times since we installed it
    • When combined with Sophos Central, you have an easy to use dashboard where you can manage all installations from a single pane of glass.
    • It's easy to deploy on machines and stays updated.
    • Good reporting features including alerts sent to the admin if there's ever something wrong with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Integrations with on-premise workloads can sometimes be challenging. Needs improvement and well standardised integration points
    • Vulnerability categories can be difficult to understand. It should allow teams to focus on critical findings and help them keep aside low-severity or suppressed vulnerabilities
    • Pricing can be improved as it can be over-priced for smaller businesses and would potentially affect their ROI due to the small scale
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • I'd say building out summaries and log reviews for analysts reviewing incidents. So, pivoting from the alerts themselves to actually getting the detail underneath. Trying to understand what caused an alert, where they went from there, et cetera, et cetera. And then trying to get into deeper log review to take that investigation further can be a pain point.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    • Sophos OOTB policies are very strict and they don't offer anything less strict without you creating new custom policies. I'm sure this is deliberate because the product starts you out in the safest way possible but it means that you will have lots of calls to your tech support desk when you first deploy it unless you do somewhat extensive testing beforehand.
    • Sophos Intercept X is currently broken (at least the DLP component) by having secure boot turned on in the UEFI/BIOS. If any user wants to be able to write data to a USB drive or floppy from their PC (yes we still have a couple users who need to use floppies) we have to turn off secure boot on their PC, even if the DLP policy for that user/PC combination specifies that the user and PC are allowed to write to USB/floppy. This would be a very serious problem if it weren't for the fact that we have very few users who need to write files to USB. For us it's OK but I bet it would be a deal-breaker for others.
    • I don't see a whole lot of evidence that Intercept X is any different than any other anti-virus, so maybe their admin alerts just don't clearly identify when they have identified a zero-day threat or maybe we just haven't had any zero-day threats.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Cost add-ons for Security features is nickel and diming the process to keep pace with cybercrime. Limited Education budgets require us to be more pro-active in finding cost-effective measures to protect our devices, staff and students. Defender is a strong, well-featured product that is pricing itself out of the education market
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    We have gotten a great product for the price. Easy to maintain and set up on new devices. Support is great and easy to work with and understand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Because it's hard to find things sometimes. I can find things now because I know where they are. But you have to work with it a little while to figure out how. I'd basically say it was a security tool designed by developers. So you have to get that mindset to find things. So a new hire, a new person in the SOC would have a difficult time. I know that's sitting in here, or that screen is in here somewhere. So it's gotten better.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    The usability has never been a problem. Sophos Intercept X is a program you can install and let protect your company without much intervention. Apart from a few policies, Sophos will keep you protected better than most any product on the market. Sophos Intercept X works quite well when you are looking to "tighten your grip" on user's access to websites, programs, and add-ons.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint chugs along just fine no matter what we throw at it and what systems it's running on. It doesn't take up a lot of resources either, so that's welcomed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy on memory and resources on clients.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    The first time I tried to onboard my macOS endpoints to MDE I struggled for quite a bit. I had to reach out to Microsoft's MDE support team. The tech was very helpful in walking me through the steps during a screen share session
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    Most of the support reps are fantastic. There have been a few though that have had to be escalated via Account Manager when they haven't followed up but this is a rare instance, and often followed up by the Support Manager for APAC.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Deployment was handled by our team here and everything went pretty smoothly. We did have a few hiccups in our test group, but that only took a bit to get ironed out.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    Best thing was the help pushing out via group policy and was able to get instructions for that on sophos site
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    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 gives the needed insight, security alerts and recommendations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Particularly, we're evaluating Symantec Endpoint Protection, the commercial version. We've looked at eSet, a couple of the others, and it's much too heavy or difficult to manage, things like that. Ease of use, ease of integration. It's already there. It's super easy to update it with the regular OS updates and everything. So we can manage it whether we're using SCCM or Intune or Dato, it's very easy to deploy updates and manage things.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    Webroot Endpoint Protection is not even in the same league as Sophos Intercept-X. I have tested and compared both sides by side, run simulations and it's not even close. Plus the Sophos central management is so much better. Easier to view user activities and apply policies and remediate threats. Sophos is the clear winner between these two products.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easily scaled from small orgs to giant enterprises.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • I think the positive impact overall is that we do a lot of sitting in front of assessors- federal assessors, government assessors. And it really comes down to when the assessor has to think about another product that you're bringing in that's not Microsoft, it creates a lot of confusion, more paperwork, more explanation. But the positive impact is that they know it, everybody kind of knows Microsoft. And so when you tell them you have this endpoint for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, they're like, okay. The questions go away, and it makes the overhead a lot less during an assessment.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    • Once our technical and commercial areas got certified, the ROI over the time spent, is great. Actual customers, and/or new ones with other tools, feel safe and advised, once they get in touch with us.
    • When Sophos EndPoint is being compared against Web Management Tools (competitors), we have failed to deliver, nevertheless, there is a version of Sophos Central (Cloud) which achieves this requirement at 100% and more, since is Cloud Based (on AWS).
    • We are grateful to be on Sophos "Radar" as a Platinum Partner, and "The Americas" valued partner, we have seen our business grow, thanks to this kind of technology, throughout the years.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Screenshots

    Screenshot of blocked activitiesScreenshot of Detects & respondsScreenshot of discovers vulnerabilityScreenshot of Eliminates blind spotsScreenshot of Risk management

    Sophos Intercept X Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot