Every category where a model named Microsoft Defender 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 protection	IT operations and endpoint	2%	17 of 99	40%	5	under 10 labels · led by Microsoft Defender for Cloud at 22%
Endpoint detection and response	Security operations	2%	10 of 54	0%	3	under 10 labels · led by Bitdefender GravityZone at 20%
Attack surface management	Security operations	0%	75 of 104	33%	3	under 10 labels · led by Intruder at 59%
Threat intelligence platforms	Security operations	0%	57 of 128	0%	2	under 10 labels · led by NordStellar at 13%
Container and Kubernetes security	Cloud and infrastructure	0%	52 of 78	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by Aqua Security at 18%
SOAR platforms	Security operations	0%	29 of 49	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by Tines at 47%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Microsoft Defender 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 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	0	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	1	0	2	3
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	2	0	0	3
Mistral Small	0	1	0	0	1
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	1	0	2
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	1	0	1
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	1	2	0	3
Kimi K2	1	0	0	0	1
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	0	1	1
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0	0	0

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

Direct3 labelsNone

Paraphrase4 labelsNone

Comparative5 labelsNone

Budget-constrained6 labels1

Scale-constrained9 labels2

Negative15 labels3not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative42 labels in all, every segment counted; 3 of the 6 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.

“Already on Microsoft 365 E5 | Microsoft Defender for Endpoint | Zero marginal cost; genuinely competitive” Kimi K2 · EDR · scale prompt · first choice

“If Microsoft-heavy, Defender for Endpoint often wins on integration/cost.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Endpoint protection · scale prompt · first choice

“Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 — genuinely competitive and essentially *free* if you already hold Microsoft 365 E5. Strong economic case.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · EDR · scale prompt · alternative

“built-in operating system protections (like Microsoft Defender) or lightweight antivirus suites are often sufficient and more cost-effective” Mistral Small · Endpoint protection · negative prompt · alternative

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.

“or unmanaged Windows Defender” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Endpoint protection · negative prompt · hard negative

“folded into massive enterprise security suites (like Microsoft Defender...) ... if you are looking for an agile, standalone, multi-cloud solution, these acquired platforms are often overpriced” Gemini 3.5 Flash · ASM · negative prompt · soft negative

“Triple zero-day vulnerabilities ... 2 still unpatched"; yet "For personal use, consider Microsoft Defender” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Endpoint protection · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Microsoft Defender, over the 42 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Microsoft Defender was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

CrowdStrike18 of 421Not in the top three

CrowdStrike Falcon11 of 423Not in the top three

SentinelOne10 of 420Not in the top three

SentinelOne Singularity8 of 421Not in the top three

Huntress Managed EDR7 of 423Not in the top three

Recorded Future6 of 421Not in the top three

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR6 of 420Not in the top three

ThreatConnect6 of 420Not in the top three

Trend Micro6 of 420Not in the top three

Wiz5 of 420Not 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. 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 31 of the 42 answers that named Microsoft Defender and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

cyberpress.org13

gbhackers.com13

gartner.com9

cybersecuritynews.com8

g2.com8

upguard.com8

paloaltonetworks.com7

decryptiondigest.com6

huntress.com6

vectra.ai6

Eighty-four of the eighty-four domain citations in answers naming Microsoft Defender came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

cyberpress.org/edr-solutions-by-business-size7

gbhackers.com/best-edr-solutions-compared6

cybersecuritynews.com/best-edr-solutions5

gartner.com/reviews/market/endpoint-protection-platforms5

huntress.com/internal-it-cybersecurity-guide/best-endpoint-protection-for-small-businesses5

sophos.com/en-us/blog/sophos-named-a-leader-in-the-2024-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-endpoin4

upguard.com/blog/best-threat-intelligence-platforms-and-vendors4

acronis.com/en/blog/posts/best-edr-endpoint-detection-and-response-solutions-in-20263

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Microsoft Defender

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

Windows Defender 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'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, 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 microsoftdefender.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.