Every category where a model named Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Endpoint detection and response	Security operations	20%	2 of 54	11%	38	accepted challenger
Endpoint protection	IT operations and endpoint	18%	3 of 99	5%	38	accepted challenger
Extended detection and response	Security operations	0%	24 of 61	0%	3	under 10 labels · led by Microsoft Defender XDR at 63%
Vulnerability management platforms	Security operations	0%	65 of 80	50%	2	under 10 labels · led by Rapid7 InsightVM at 45%
Remote monitoring and management	IT operations and endpoint	0%	26 of 57	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by NinjaOne at 50%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Microsoft Defender for Endpoint across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	2	3	0	5
GPT-5.4 mini	5	1	0	0	6
Gemini 3.5 Flash	1	2	0	4	7
Perplexity Sonar	0	3	2	0	5
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	5	0	1	6
Mistral Small	1	5	2	0	8
DeepSeek V4 Flash	2	5	0	1	8
Llama 4 Maverick	2	1	2	0	5
Qwen 3.7 Flash	4	6	0	0	10
Kimi K2	2	3	1	0	6
GLM 4.7 FlashX	4	3	0	1	8
MiniMax M2.5	2	4	2	0	8

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct44 labels15

Paraphrase42 labels16

Comparative44 labels9not counted in share

Budget-constrained33 labels26

Scale-constrained23 labels4

Negative30 labels2not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative216 labels in all, every segment counted; 61 of the 72 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“try Microsoft Defender for Endpoint first—it is a world-class product—and only pay extra for a third-party vendor if you find a gap it cannot fill.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Endpoint protection · scale prompt · first choice

“the best EDR platform is usually either Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Business / P2) – if you already have a Microsoft 365 subscription” GLM 4.7 FlashX · EDR · budget prompt · first choice

“If you're already on Microsoft 365 E5 → Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the clear winner (included, integrated, and strong).” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Endpoint protection · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“is often the best value because you may already own it... this is the clear winner—enterprise-grade EDR at no incremental cost” Kimi K2 · EDR · budget prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Market leaders like Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE), SentinelOne, and Palo Alto Cortex XDR are highly capable, but they are also incredibly complex.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · EDR · negative prompt · soft negative

“standalone Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Plan 2) ... operate like a black box that spits out thousands of highly technical alerts” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Endpoint protection · negative prompt · soft negative

“It is a powerful tool, but it is notoriously "noisy." Out of the box, it generates a high volume of alerts that require manual tuning” Gemini 3.5 Flash · EDR · direct prompt · soft negative

“Cautions: Non-Windows agents less mature (macOS kernel issues), higher tuning needed for alert quality, slower MTTR in hybrid setups.” Grok 4.1 Fast · EDR · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, over the 216 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

CrowdStrike Falcon151 of 21651Not in the top three

SentinelOne Singularity142 of 21615Not in the top three

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR86 of 2160Not in the top three

Bitdefender GravityZone73 of 2169Compare →

Sophos Intercept X67 of 2160Not in the top three

Huntress Managed EDR37 of 2166Compare →

Trend Micro36 of 2160Not in the top three

SentinelOne35 of 2163Not in the top three

CrowdStrike30 of 2165Not in the top three

ESET PROTECT25 of 2163Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 170 of the 216 answers that named Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

gbhackers.com118

cybersecuritynews.com75

cyberpress.org62

huntress.com54

gartner.com51

acronis.com46

decryptiondigest.com45

sentinelone.com43

tech-insider.org36

microsoft.comYour site35

530 of the 565 domain citations in answers naming Microsoft Defender for Endpoint came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

gbhackers.com/best-edr-solutions-compared99

cybersecuritynews.com/best-edr-solutions57

cyberpress.org/edr-solutions-by-business-size49

gbhackers.com/best-business-antivirus-compared47

acronis.com/en/blog/posts/best-edr-endpoint-detection-and-response-solutions-in-202641

deel.com/blog/best-endpoint-protection-for-business34

gartner.com/reviews/market/endpoint-protection-platforms31

cyber-tools.net/blog/sentinelone-vs-crowdstrike-vs-defender-edr-202627

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint; a claim can dispute any of them.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) 7Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 3Defender for Endpoint 1Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Business / P2) 1Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Defender XDR) 1Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (P2) 1Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Plan 2) 1Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at microsoft.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.