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Huntress Managed EDR vs Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

Huntress Managed EDR
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
1st
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th)
Microsoft Defender Experts ...
Ranking in Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
19th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of Huntress Managed EDR is 4.1%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Huntress Managed EDR4.1%
Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting1.3%
Other94.6%
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
 

Featured Reviews

YashwantShinde - PeerSpot reviewer
Soc Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Managed detection has transformed investigations and now speeds up containment and response
The best features Huntress Managed EDR offers include 24/7 monitoring, process insight that we get while investigating any suspicious process or command line activity, and the child-parent process relationship. The containment actions allow us to take host isolation and assisted or automated remediation, which speeds up the removal of malicious files or persistence mechanisms and helps us identify attempts to survive the reboot, assisting in detecting persistent detections in the device. Most of the time, we rely on 24/7 SOC monitoring and investigation support. In my day-to-day activities, it helps me to continuously review the endpoint activity and validate suspicious detections, so I don't have to manually investigate every alert. This gives me more time to focus on genuine alerts or incidents and threat hunting and deeper investigations instead of wasting time on false positive alerts. Host isolation or remediation is very helpful because it helps us contain the confirmed threat quickly and reduce the risk of lateral movement. Huntress Managed EDR has a positive impact mainly through faster threat detection and reduced manual investigation effort. The 24/7 SOC gives us additional monitoring and validation, while the endpoint telemetry provides useful context for investigations. It also helps us contain and remediate threats faster, particularly when endpoint isolation or automated remediation is needed. Overall, it has improved our security response efficiency without requiring us to build a dedicated 24/7 SOC monitoring capability internally. Regarding outcomes, we have seen a measurable improvement in response time and analyst workload, with about 20 to 30% less manual effort for endpoint alert investigation response. For context, Huntress customer case studies report response times dropping from hours to 5 to 10 minutes in some environments. Huntress Managed EDR is quite easy to use, especially after the initial deployment. The agent is straightforward to deploy and handles much of the monitoring, detection, and response through the managed SOC. There is lesser day-to-day configuration for us. From an investigation perspective, the dashboard and endpoint telemetry make it fairly easy to review process activities, detection, isolation, and remediation. Overall, after using it for about a year, the learning curve is low and it is much less operationally demanding than managing a traditional EDR ourselves. From my experience, it has significantly reduced the alert triage workload. Instead of reviewing every endpoint alert, Huntress SOC continuously monitors, investigates, and filters out benign alerts, escalating the confirmed alerts with context. We do use the automation for remediation of low-severity threats. It has been particularly useful for things like PUPs and other minor malware artifacts because Huntress SOC validates the activity and can remediate it without waiting for our manual approval. From our operations perspective, it has reduced repetitive remediation work and allows us to focus on higher priority incidents.
Joe Cicero - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Marketing Officer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Proactive threat hunting has strengthened our defenses and provides expert support for incidents
Proactive threat hunting as well as the Ask an Expert feature, which is a button inside of the XDR portal that becomes available when the customer owns Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, are the best features it offers. If a customer or one of our analysts needs extra support or has a question about a Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting notification, they can click on that button and chat directly with a Microsoft security analyst to get more information or fill in any gaps regarding the Ask an Expert feature. Improved detection rates are one of the specific outcomes that show the positive impact because Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is a second set of eyes or a second team looking for emerging threats within a shared customer's environment. For us, the proactive approach that Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is always running is valuable, and we see those alerts pop up inside of our incident queues in Microsoft Sentinel and we respond and acknowledge them. In many cases, Microsoft might see an alert from a zero-day that we aren't even aware of yet or the industry isn't aware of yet and we see that tagged within our incident queue, which allows us to follow up with it much sooner than had we had to search and detect for it ourselves. Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting helps my customers detect or prevent emerging threats that are not yet published but Microsoft has visibility into. Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting's reporting and analytics are clear and actionable, and the fact that it's tied to the MITRE framework puts it all in a common language. Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting helps my customers comply with industry regulations or standards, though I am unsure how, but many have requirements for threat hunting and this checks that box. Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting helps my team respond to incidents by providing a backstop, which does speed up the process and improve outcomes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Using Huntress Managed EDR has helped reduce the need for expensive security tools or hiring additional security analysts since I can use that as the first port of call versus trying to get an external SOC."
"I would absolutely recommend Huntress Managed EDR, as I consider them a leader in the field and am confident in their service."
"The EDR product is simple to install. It is low maintenance. All the alerts go to Huntress first, and their analyst team reviews them and sends actionable things our way."
"I think Huntress Managed EDR is an excellent solution for SMBs because it provides strong endpoint protection without the complexity found in many enterprise security products while being easy to deploy and manage."
"After deploying Huntress Managed EDR, I saw the benefits immediately because as we were installing it, we started getting those alerts."
"Users usually note improvements in a matter of days. In others, it is immediately. It varies according to the environment."
"Huntress helped us to reduce the need for expensive security tools or expensive security analysts. That's very important, especially with us being a a smaller business. Not having to purchase larger software has been great."
"Overall, Huntress Managed EDR has strengthened our security posture mainly through continuous endpoint monitoring, faster detection, and quicker containment."
"Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting helps my customers detect or prevent emerging threats that are not yet published but Microsoft has visibility into."
"Easy to use is what my customers say is the biggest benefit of Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting for them."
"What really stands out about Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is that it's easy to use, the cost is clear, and the pricing is transparent, with straightforward onboarding in hybrid, cloud, or on-premise environments."
"The best feature of this solution is that it is an integrated and comprehensive solution for the entire Microsoft ecosystem."
"The solution helps to detect some suspicious items for us and our clients."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more customization and deeper integration with SIEM and other security tools for Huntress Managed EDR, as better reporting and more detailed endpoint investigation data would also make investigations easier, especially for complex incidents."
"The solution's UI is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"I would like to see an easier way to whitelist sites or to monitor some of the reporting that Huntress Managed EDR does."
"Huntress Managed EDR can be improved in that right now it can only support Windows Defender and not other third-party antivirus software."
"The Huntress is not a standalone solution. It really needs to be used with something else such as Microsoft Defender or another antivirus solution. It would be nice to see the product fleshed out by the Huntress team and include the antivirus solution part as well. I want it to be a full-fledged XDR product. It would push the tool to a higher price range but it would be nice to see the fleshed out features. I want them to integrate more features from the XDR realm."
"Huntress Managed EDR could improve filtering for low-priority alerts and give more granular exclusion controls."
"It would be ideal if they could create some incentives to help more partners get clients to onboard it."
"The areas that have room for improvement with Huntress Managed EDR probably include more detection engines underneath the hood."
"There is a lot of change in a small period. This might not be helpful for IT administrators and users."
"The price of the solution is costly, which I find significant."
"We tried the proactive threat hunting feature, but it was not a good experience with Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting. It created more trouble than expected with false positives and non-expected answers."
"As a partner, Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting could be improved by getting earlier threat detection signals so we could proactively research on our own end and help support a campaign to raise awareness as well as proactive response."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe Huntress Managed EDR is fairly priced. The value I get from it in terms of peace of mind justifies the expense. You can justify it as a business expense."
"Huntress is priced fairly for the services and value it provides."
"I believe Huntress offers competitive pricing overall."
"Regarding the pricing for Huntress Managed EDR, I was amazed when I heard the price; I thought it was going to be way more than what it is based on the quality."
"It is very fair. I started at $2.50 and now I am at $3.50. When I signed up, I thought it was too cheap. It now reflects the price. It is very fair. I do not think you can find anything better."
"The solution is cheap compared to other alternatives. It offers good value for money. For the whole solution, it's up to about five pounds per device per month. Considering what it does, I think that's very good value."
"The cost-effectiveness of Huntress is much better compared to BlackPoint. Although Huntress does not offer all the finer details that BlackPoint does, it remains much more competitive in pricing."
"Huntress Managed EDR offers a fair pricing model."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business72
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Huntress?
I would like to see more customization and deeper integration with SIEM and other security tools for Huntress Managed EDR, as better reporting and more detailed endpoint investigation data would al...
What is your primary use case for Huntress?
My main use case for Huntress Managed EDR is endpoint monitoring and threat detection, which I use to investigate suspicious processes, malware activity, endpoint alerts, and potential indicators o...
What advice do you have for others considering Huntress?
I would rate Huntress Managed EDR a nine out of 10 because it gives strong endpoint visibility, reliable threat detection, and effective remediation, while the managed SOC reduces the workload for ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting?
As a partner, Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting could be improved by getting earlier threat detection signals so we could proactively research on our own end and help support a campaign to rai...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting?
As a working security partner, my main use case for Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is that many of our customers also have Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting and really find a lot of va...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting?
As a partner, there can be some concern that Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting is taking away some of our business because they're providing a solution that we also provide. However, the team ...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Huntress Managed EDR vs. Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.