Home › Compare › Endpoint Security (EDR/XDR) › CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender

A side-by-side comparison across pricing, deployment, integrations, compliance, and edr / xdr-specific features. Descriptive comparison only — no recommendations.

4 min read Data verified: May 2026 Endpoint Security (EDR/XDR)
CrowdStrike Falcon
EDR / XDR
Falcon Go ($59.99/endpoint/yr), Pro (~$110), Enterprise ($184.99), Elite &… Complete MDR (custom enterprise quote)
Paid
Visit official site →
Microsoft Defender
EDR / XDR
Defender Antivirus is free with Windows Defender for Endpoint P1 and P2 sold standalone (~$3-$5.20/user/mo) or included in M365 E5
Freemium
Visit official site →
$ Pricing & plans
5 dimensions
Pricing model
Falcon Go ($59.99/endpoint/yr), Pro (~$110), Enterprise ($184.99), Elite &…
Complete MDR (custom enterprise quote)
Defender Antivirus is free with Windows
Defender for Endpoint P1 and P2 sold standalone (~$3-$5.20/user/mo) or included in M365 E5
Pricing tier
Paid
Freemium
Free tier / trial
Trial only
15-day trial of Falcon Prevent with Device Control and Express Support
Free tier
Built-in Windows AV is free; 90-day trial available for Defender for Endpoint and full M365 E5
Volume discounts
Tiered pricing breaks at 500, 1000, and 5000 endpoints (typical 10-20% off list…
at enterprise scale)
Microsoft Enterprise Agreement and CSP volume tiers
typical 10-30% discount at enterprise scale
Hidden costs
Identity Protection, NG-SIEM, and Cloud Security are separate modules
extended data retention is an add-on; Elite support is a premium tier
Full EDR/XDR/Sentinel integration value depends on M365 E5 licensing
cross-platform support and some Sentinel ingestion may incur additional cost
↗ Deployment & integrations
3 dimensions
Deployment
Cloud-native SaaS only
agent installs in minutes per endpoint
Cloud-managed via Microsoft 365 Defender portal
agent deployment via Intune, Group Policy, or System Center
Typical deployment time
Minutes per endpoint
enterprise-wide rollout typically days to weeks
Hours for Windows-centric M365-licensed organizations
longer when consolidating multiple endpoint vendors
Key integrations
Splunk, IBM QRadar, ServiceNow, Jira, Palo Alto XSOAR, AWS Security Hub,…
Microsoft Sentinel, Okta, Zscaler
Microsoft Sentinel, Entra ID, Intune, Purview, Defender for Cloud, Office 365
third-party connectors via Microsoft Graph Security API
🛡 EDR / XDR-specific evaluation
7 dimensions
Detection technology
Cloud-delivered machine learning, behavioral analytics, indicator-of-attack…
patterns, integrated threat intelligence
Cloud-delivered ML, behavioral analytics, integrated Microsoft threat…
intelligence (signals from 78+ trillion daily events)
MITRE ATT&CK eval (2024)
Consistently strong performance across MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations
Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection 2025
Strong participation in MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations with high detection coverage
Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection 2025
Threat hunting
OverWatch human-led threat hunting included in Enterprise tier
Falcon Insight provides query-based hunting via CQL
Advanced Hunting with Kusto Query Language (KQL) across all Microsoft 365 Defender signals
pre-built hunting queries and Jupyter notebook integration
Managed detection (MDR)
Falcon Complete is a 24/7 managed SOC service (~$125/endpoint/yr at 500 endpoints)
OverWatch managed threat hunting included with Enterprise tier
Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR is a paid managed service
widely supported by Microsoft partner MSSP ecosystem
Automated response
Host containment, process termination, USB blocking
no native file rollback to pre-infection state
Automated investigation and response (AIR) for self-healing, quarantine, file…
removal, account containment
Platforms supported
Windows, macOS, Linux, AWS/Azure/GCP workloads, containers, iOS, Android
Windows (deepest integration), macOS, Linux, iOS, Android
broad Microsoft 365 and Azure coverage
Offline operation
Cloud-architected
reduced detection capability when fully offline, though local prevention policies still apply
Windows-native AV provides offline protection
cloud-delivered features (EDR sensor analytics) require connectivity
✓ Compliance & certifications
1 dimension
Compliance certifications
SOC 2 Type II, FedRAMP High, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR
FedRAMP High, SOC 1/2/3, ISO 27001/27018, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, IRAP, C5, HITRUST
◧ Positioning
3 dimensions
Target deployment
Mid-market to Enterprise (500+ endpoints)
Organizations standardized on Microsoft 365 / Windows
Strengths cited
Strong detection performance in MITRE evaluations, lightweight single agent,…
mature threat intelligence integration, 24/7 OverWatch managed threat hunting included at Enterprise tier
Native Windows integration with no separate agent, bundled into Microsoft 365…
E5, broad XDR coverage across endpoint/identity/email/cloud, no additional vendor relationship for M365 customers
Where it fits less well
Enterprise-tier pricing, modular licensing where advanced capabilities are…
add-ons, requires security expertise to operationalize fully
Full EDR/XDR value tied to Microsoft 365 E5 licensing
cross-platform parity (macOS/Linux) is closer to Windows feature set than in previous years but still maturing on some advanced telemetry
Related comparisons
CrowdStrike Falcon vs SentinelOne Singularity→ SentinelOne Singularity vs Microsoft Defender→ Bitdefender GravityZone vs SentinelOne Singularity→

See all Endpoint Security (EDR/XDR) tools

Browse the full category with side-by-side comparisons across edr / xdr-specific dimensions.

Browse Endpoint Security (EDR/XDR) →
Methodology Comparison data synthesized from publicly available vendor documentation, MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations, AV-TEST results, Gartner Peer Insights, G2/Capterra/TrustRadius reviews, anonymized transaction data (Vendr, CostBench, CheckThat.ai), and publicly reported pricing as of May 2026. defend.network is independent and has no commercial relationship with the vendors compared.