Microsoft Defender XDR vs Wazuh

A side-by-side comparison on deployment model, data residency, licensing basis and security coverage. Structural facts are verifiable against vendor documentation; the scored dimensions are our assessment.

MD

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft

7.6

Average across eight dimensions

Deployment
SaaS only
Licensing
M365 E5 licence tier
Time to value
Medium
Segment
Enterprise
G2
4.5 (288)
WZ

Wazuh

Wazuh Inc.

8.0

Average across eight dimensions

Deployment
Self-hosted
Licensing
Free; paid support available
Time to value
Complex
Segment
SMB / mid-market
G2
4.5 (72)

Score by dimension

Dimension MD WZ
Data residency control 2 10
Pricing value 7.5 9.8
Detection accuracy 8.5 8
Response speed 8.5 7
Ease of setup 8 6
Management UX 8 6.5
Integration depth 9.5 8
Security coverage 9 8.5

What the comparison says

Microsoft Defender XDR is SaaS only and Wazuh is self-hosted. Where your obligations dictate residency, that difference tends to settle the choice before any score is read.

Microsoft Defender XDR licenses on M365 E5 licence tier, Wazuh on free; paid support available. Neither bills on data volume, so the comparison is about what each licence includes rather than how much you send it.

Microsoft Defender XDR leads on response speed, ease of setup, management UX and integrations. Wazuh leads on residency and pricing value.

Microsoft Defender XDR

  • +Effectively free at the margin for organisations already licensed for M365 E5.
  • +Deepest possible integration with Entra ID, Exchange and the Microsoft estate.
  • +Security Copilot adds AI-assisted investigation without a separate purchase.
  • −Runs in Azure only. There is no on-premises deployment at any tier.
  • −Coverage is materially weaker across non-Windows endpoints and Linux servers.

Best for Microsoft-centric enterprises already paying for E5 Security.

Watch out Value collapses outside the Microsoft stack, and residency is fixed to Azure regions.

Wazuh

  • +Genuinely free and open source with no licence cost at any scale.
  • +Mature rule engine, file integrity monitoring and configuration assessment.
  • +Fully self-hosted and air-gap capable with a large community rule base.
  • −The surrounding stack is where the real cost lands: indexer, dashboards and storage.
  • −Operational burden falls entirely on your team unless a support contract is bought.

Best for Teams with platform engineering capacity and a strong preference for open source.

Watch out Budget for the indexing layer and the engineer who maintains it.

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More Microsoft Defender XDR comparisons

MD vs NP MD vs CS MD vs S1 MD vs PA MD vs TM MD vs SO MD vs CR MD vs TX MD vs BD MD vs EL MD vs CI MD vs FT MD vs ES

More Wazuh comparisons

WZ vs NP WZ vs CS WZ vs S1 WZ vs PA WZ vs TM WZ vs SO WZ vs CR WZ vs TX WZ vs BD WZ vs EL WZ vs CI WZ vs FT WZ vs ES

Data last verified 2026-10-06. nPro publishes this comparison. Where nPro appears as one of the platforms listed, its card is marked and its scores are our own assessment. Third-party review scores are sourced from public vendor profiles. Structural facts are verifiable against each vendor's documentation: deployment model, licensing basis and residency.