Microsoft Defender XDR vs. Sophos Intercept X

Sophos Intercept X

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Microsoft Defender XDR	Score 8.9 out of 10	N/A	Microsoft 365 Defender combines SIEM and XDR capabilities for Microsoft 365 environments, encompassing threat detection, post-breach detection, automated investigation, and response for endpoints. Additionally, it protects cloud apps, emails and documents, and employee identities.	N/A
Sophos Intercept X	Score 8.9 out of 10	N/A	Sophos 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 XDR

Sophos Intercept X

Editions & Modules

No answers on this topic

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 XDR	Sophos Intercept X
Free Trial
Yes	No
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

No setup fee

Additional Details

—

Pricing is for a 3-year commitment. Government and Education pricing available.

More Pricing Information

Pricing Info

Community Pulse
	Microsoft Defender XDR	Sophos Intercept X
Considered Both Products	Microsoft Defender XDR LL Lian Lopreiato Manager Chose Microsoft Defender XDR We saw CrowdStrike but Microsoft Defender XDR was already in our computer. It was cheaper too cause we had Micrsoft license. CrowdStrike look cool but had many buttons and hard to read. My team like Microsoft Defender XDR because it looks same like other Microsoft thing. We … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Our product in that area, for instance as a security platform and for us it is for the moment really bad point. We started to move in that direction that there is that disconnect from the client management. So if there is some action that needs to be executed detected by … Incentivized Helpful? NS Nikhil Sharma Account Manager Chose Microsoft Defender XDR As a business already using Microsoft 365 and Azure, the seamless integration with Microsoft Defender XDR provided a unified security approach, streamlining management and operations. Incentivized Helpful? HP Hemant Patel Manager Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Avast had very limited capabilities, especially in terms of automation. We had to have some employees available 24/7 to monitor and take necessary actions. Microsoft Defender is so much more advanced. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR We have a microsoft ecosystem and we can easily implement Microsoft Defender XDR in a breeze. Using few option, we can actually start logging and managing all the data. Incentivized Helpful? Alfiya Mukadam Software Engineer Chose Microsoft Defender XDR CrowdStrike Falcon Incentivized Helpful? Harshit Lal security consultant Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Microsoft Defender XDR deployment process is seamless as compared to proofpoint Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR I've used Trend Micro, but it's not exactly the same because Trend Micro is equivalent to one of the parts of Defender XDR, which is Defender for Endpoint. But Trend Micro has also a portal that combines all the incidents like Defender XDR, but I think the Microsoft one is much … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Microsoft Defender XDR is more seamless than Sophos Intercept X as it is better integrated into the Microsoft 365 suite. Sophos Intercept X is a little bit cheaper per year than Microsoft Defender XDR though, and definitely worth looking into if you are looking for a security … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Well, we're actually evaluating the other products now. We had selected Defender XDR because at the time we just got a good deal on it. Incentivized Helpful? JH Jany Harber System Engineer Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Azure AI Vision Incentivized Helpful? Shubham Jurail IT Consultant Chose Microsoft Defender XDR It was easy to implement in comparison to Palo Alto, and cost-saving can integrate well with Windows products. Incentivized Helpful? Mario Urrutia CITO (Chief Information Technology Officer) Chose Microsoft Defender XDR It really was the first and most logical option since it is an integral part of the platform that we want to protect and so far the results have been optimal. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR We used the MS XDR as this is a bundle that we bought when we subscribed to the M365 platform, so having it was a bonus as we stated earlier, but due to limitation on licenses in Sentinelone, having this is just a blessing for us, so we can reduce around 200 licenses and can … Incentivized Helpful? CB Caridad Buenaventura Senior Financial Analyst Chose Microsoft Defender XDR The Microsoft 365 Defender is a product that has a lot of advantages over other similar products. This is because Microsoft 365 Defender integrates seamlessly with both Microsoft 365 services, is capable of detecting threats in real time, and has the capability of automating … Incentivized Helpful? Abdrhman Arar . Systems Engineer Chose Microsoft Defender XDR For the Identity Protection, Microsoft 365 Defender helps me to have fewer headaches from resetting passwords and securing the hacked account, it forces the security layers that help to achieve this solution.For the Endpoint, I have bought too many apps to secure endpoints but … Incentivized Helpful? Rudy Fulmer System Engineer Chose Microsoft Defender XDR We use sophos endpoint protection and xg firewalls in conjunction with microsoft 365 defender. We dont believe defender is robust enough to be our only security solution but it works well as another line of defense from threats to our organization especially our ever growing … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR beats cylance protect, crowstrike is solid but at a costly product cannot use kapersky due to embargo norton not good enough now Incentivized Helpful? WP William Press Cloud Project Manager Chose Microsoft Defender XDR We have used and find great value with competitors to Microsoft 365 Defender. Many of these services were utilized before customers began the total cloud shift that has been seen with certain industries. It is difficult to compare these products apples to apples. What I will … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR As already stated, the main advantage of Defender is being able to use a single console to manage it and all the other 365 applications. I can state that it provides a more effective protection than Bitdefender MDR and Trend Micro Apex One while I consider CrowdStrike on the … Incentivized Helpful? Anirudh Srinivas Lead Enterprise Architect Chose Microsoft Defender XDR The integration into our office suite and email system is really a breeze with the Microsoft 365 Defender Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Trend Micro Vision One is much more expensive and there is so much more to configure. For our use case it was to big. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR We use Microsoft products and have a large group of users. It works easily with our system. There is a great deal of knowledge base out there, often a little overwhelming. But we feel it's the best tool for our network to use parallel to the rest of our back-end. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Firstly Microsoft 365 Defender offers effortless integration with other Microsoft solutions over the products evaluated. Compared to Microsoft 365 Defender the evaluated products should improve the integration and its web interfaces. Few challenges were encountered when … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Defender XDR Microsoft is a known leader in the cyber security space and the trust microsoft has is greater than any other product. The pricing though bit on the higher side , but it ensures a proper support with using the product which makes it more preferred in our organisation.it is … Incentivized Helpful?	Sophos Intercept X Verified User Anonymous Chose Sophos Intercept X Bitdefender was garbage, and it did not work well for non-persistent VDI desktops. Even though we bought it we dumped it after a month and bought Sophos instead. The difference was like night and day. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos Intercept X is one of the industry leaders for a reason. Apart from integration issues, Sophos Intercept X stands above the rest when it comes to protection and usability. I have used at least 30 different antiviruses, antimalware, and antiransomeware programs and none … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Sophos Intercept X They have almost the same features but we ended up with a better offer for Sophos. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos Intercept X offers a far more comprehensive and stable product when pitted up against Comodo Advanced Endpoint Protection and Watchguard Endpoint Security - both of which we offer as low cost alternatives for customers who are adamant about not paying for Sophos … Incentivized Helpful? IR Ian Reger IT Specialist Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos Intercept X is easy to manage and deploy under your business. I think it is comparable to BitDefend with the ability to send out deployment via email or directly add it to the computer. I have noticed that Bitdefender seems to eat a lot of resources during its scans … Incentivized Helpful? William Scott Coates IT Support Specialist Chose Sophos Intercept X 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 … Incentivized Helpful? AP Ash Patel Director of IT and Facilities Chose Sophos Intercept X I personally found Sophos Intercept X GUI to be easy to use. The agent is easy to deploy on client machines and runs in the background silently. It has a very good virus, malware scan engine that picks out a high percentage of malicious software. The price was also very … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos is much more user friendly and scalable for partners who wish to [centralize] all security across the IT industry, from email security, server security, phish threat management and more. Incentivized Helpful? Beau Sorensen COO Chose Sophos Intercept X We have used Avast, AVG, Panda, Sophos' original antivirus product, and Symantec before and it is better than each of them. The cloud console is the star of the show and it dramatically reduces the cost and effort needed to install the product. Other products were only … Incentivized Helpful? Reginald Johnson Managing Consultant - DevOps Chose Sophos Intercept X It is one of the only products that will scan all code in memory and arbitrary data for malicious behaviors. Incentivized Helpful? Shawn Umansky Network Engineer Chose Sophos Intercept X We have been using this product for a number of years, which shows that it has worked well for us. I don't recall the other products we reviewed. Incentivized Helpful? Ramon Vazquez IT Director Chose Sophos Intercept X It provides more features for the same price. These added features differentiate Sophos from the rest of the pack, making it a better solution. Also, the ability to integrate with your Sophos firewall if you have one adds another level of integration and protection. This … Incentivized Helpful? Sarah Urbani IT Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos Intercept X is just easier to implement and manage. Incentivized Helpful? Steven Hiersche, Jr. Director Of Information Technology Chose Sophos Intercept X We didn’t evaluate any other products. I used Sophos at a previous company and when I started here, they were using the on-prem version. We immediately migrated to central and haven’t looked back. I am aware of the competitors, but once you are comfortable with a quality … Incentivized Helpful? BC Ben Coppard IT Manager Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos offered better value for money whilst beating the above products on detection and prevention. The GUI is fantastic and easy to use and works seamlessly on top of other features like DLP, application control and web monitoring. I would recommend getting the XG firewall as … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos Intercept-X gave us a more well-rounded solution. Incentivized Helpful? Jane Updegraff Senior Systems Administrator Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos Intercept X is a little less expensive than the comparable package from Trend Micro and a little more expensive than a comparable package from Symantec, but in my opinion, it's easier to operate and it's got better centralized controls than both of the others. But the … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Sophos Intercept X Trend Micro offered similar protection, however at the time did not offer EDR as a solution. The big benefit to Trend Micro was the capability to push out the installation of the agent to assets within the Trend Micro console, eliminating the need for a GPO or deployment … Incentivized Helpful? Thayer Ramahi Director, IMIT Chose Sophos Intercept X We found Sophos is a full suit in one, easy to deploy, manage and very effective. Incentivized Helpful? Neil Taylor Trade Floor Infrastructure Manager Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos is by far the simplest of the products to setup and going in a very short period of time at a very similar price point. Trend is overly complex and relied on an appliance for each ESX node meaning you lose one appliance and then you lose protection across multiple … Incentivized Helpful? Eric V. Zarghami Deputy CIO Chose Sophos Intercept X Besides legacy malware protection, Sophos is doing a good job in protecting against ransomware, thanks to their Intercept X and its behavioral analytics that would stop ransomware that was never seen in wild. Incentivized Helpful? Alex Farling Managing Partner Chose Sophos Intercept X Best in class... PERIOD... Bit Defender is a good AV product by itself, but it lacks in Next Gen Heuristic detection. It has allowed malware to get past it in our client environments, even with Admin permissions restricted. Sophos is hands down a superior product when paired … Incentivized Helpful? Ryhlen Schoeberl Server Administrator Chose Sophos Intercept X Sophos I feel is a better product upon installation we had a few systems that reported threats that ESET did not catch. Sophos also has multiple other products that we were able to bundle together and still have one interface to do. Intercept X, Endpoint Protection, and … Incentivized Helpful? Jon Shurtliff Vice President of Information Technology Chose Sophos Intercept X In our analysis we discovered that for the price and feature set, Sophos was able to rise above the rest. Pricing is always a large consideration, however it isn't the only consideration - the feature set that Sophos Endpoint Protection provided over its competitors made the … Incentivized Helpful? Matt Rogers Information Technology and Web Support Specialist Chose Sophos Intercept X We used to use Symantec Endpoint Protection. At the time we were using it (it may very well be different by now), it required a bit more maintenance and we were constantly having issues with definitions not being downloaded as well as issues updating the software itself. We … Incentivized Helpful?

Features

Microsoft Defender XDR

Sophos Intercept X

Endpoint Security

Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
	Microsoft Defender XDR - Ratings	Sophos Intercept X 8.9 Ratings 4% above category average
Anti-Exploit Technology	00 Ratings	7.10 Ratings
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)	00 Ratings	9.00 Ratings
Centralized Management	00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Hybrid Deployment Support	00 Ratings	8.00 Ratings
Infection Remediation	00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Vulnerability Management	00 Ratings	8.40 Ratings
Malware Detection	00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	Microsoft Defender XDR	Sophos Intercept X
Small Businesses	Bitdefender GravityZone Score 9.1 out of 10	ThreatLocker Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	CrowdStrike Falcon Score 9.0 out of 10	BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT) Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises	CrowdStrike Falcon Score 9.0 out of 10	BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management Score 9.8 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Microsoft Defender XDR	Sophos Intercept X
Likelihood to Recommend	8.6 (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	7.7 (0 ratings)	10.0 (0 ratings)
Usability	9.0 (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)
Support Rating	9.0 (0 ratings)	8.1 (0 ratings)
In-Person Training	9.1 (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Online Training	9.1 (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Implementation Rating	9.0 (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Microsoft Defender XDR	Sophos Intercept X
Likelihood to Recommend	Suit Really in everything, what is modern cloud work especially really if you work in a global company where your IT team is not always operational hour of the business users so that everything is really in the cloud can be managed from everywhere, but we do not access to local resources anymore. That's really a good point. What is always a little bit the pressure point is that general things in cloud things are moving fast so it's always difficult to keep the teams that is using these words up to date Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Sophos Intercept-X is well suited for any environment big or small. There is even a home version that is free that I highly recommend for anyone at home. If you are looking for endpoint protection that is centrally managed, catches everything, and has many features this is the product for you. Incentivized William Scott Coates IT Support Specialist Read full review
Pros	The software uses advanced AI and machine learning algorithms to monitor activities and detect any anomalies immediately, protecting our financial data. Automated responses to known threats reduce the impact of possible incidents and improve our security posture. Microsoft 365 Defender easily combines with other Microsoft 365 services and external security solutions, providing a complete and unified security solution. Incentivized CB Caridad Buenaventura Senior Financial Analyst Read full review	Sophos is a little too good at DLP. But it is indeed very good at not allowing our data to leave our endpoints without strict adherence to policy. Sophos is very good at protecting endpoints against viruses and other malware. Sopho is really good at informing us of what is happening on our endpoints. OOTB reporting is way better than expected. Incentivized Jane Updegraff Senior Systems Administrator Read full review
Cons	Microsoft 365 Defenders risk assessment and remediation tool can be improved while tackling and preventing the attack. As there are multiple new attacks are getting discovered to prevent and remediate those attacks the Microsoft 365 Defenders database should be keep updated and ready. The Microsoft 365 Defenders capability to identify the insider attacker can be improved. Automate response generated to remediate the attack can be strengthen. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	The migration from on-prem sophos to cloud sophos, could have been a little more seamless Would love to get more insight on what was blocked or flagged and what it was trying to do Better and more granular feature management from group policies Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	All though most of the features are upto mark, there are certain times where there have been misses to detect spam, phising emails. this might be due to the subject and content of the email being more sophisticated than standard . Incentivized Anirudh Srinivas Lead Enterprise Architect Read full review	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 Ryhlen Schoeberl Server Administrator Read full review
Usability	The product is easy to deploy and very customisable. Available if a simple UI and seamless software implementation process. Microsoft Defender XDR integrates well with various security systems. Software compatibility and scalability. Ability of the software in efficiently analysing and detecting threats in both the system and Website. MK Molka Kouki vice prsidente de la Confdration Read full review	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. Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Support Rating	Their support throughout our onboarding of the product was fabulous. They not only took the time to carefully explain to teams not as well equipped with the lingo but explained to the tech team how to teach the other teams to be successful. They never once seemed impatient or annoyed with basic questions and didn’t pretend to know something when they needed to research an answer Incentivized Morgan Thompson Account Executive Read full review	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 Verified User Anonymous Read full review
In-Person Training	Good and hard to find someonme who can explain everything for you beside Microsoft they provide you everything you need. Incentivized Abdrhman Arar . Systems Engineer Read full review	No answers on this topic
Online Training	Microsoft Provides a good training for the Microsoft 365 Defender and has a good learning paths to learn and take the exams and get your Certifications. Incentivized Abdrhman Arar . Systems Engineer Read full review	No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating	seemless and almost transparent. can be deployed by script if needed so every endpoint on our system get's it. if you have intune it gets dumped on the the endpoint by policy so nothing escapes it Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Best thing was the help pushing out via group policy and was able to get instructions for that on sophos site Incentivized Ryhlen Schoeberl Server Administrator Read full review
Alternatives Considered	We chose Microsoft Defender XDR for the ability to correlament the dangers in the Microsoft Ecosystem, Strong Automation, and email, Identification, Estruction, Establishment Points and Cloud Apps in the same platform. This gave us the end-to-end visibility without the need to sew several devices simultaneously. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	I don't feel it's fair to compare Sophos Intercept X with the versions of Symantec and AVG that I have used in the past - as that was such a long time ago. I'm sure those other companies have released far more features than I used all those years ago Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Return on Investment	Cost-Efficiency: Microsoft Defender XDR often proves cost-effective compared to implementing multiple standalone security solutions, consolidating threat detection and response capabilities. Time Savings: Its centralized dashboard and automated features can save time for security teams, allowing them to focus on critical tasks Incentivized SH stephen Hobson scrm Read full review	Before we had Intercept X, we had several infections of ransomware. Since that time it has stopped at least 10 attempts, saving us thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars. By decreasing the time needed for malware remediation, it has saved us the cost of .25 FTE in the IT department. Initial setup was cumbersome and cost us .1 FTE in additional costs the first year. Incentivized Beau Sorensen COO Read full review
ScreenShots	Microsoft Defender XDR Screenshots	Sophos Intercept X Screenshots