Defender for Business vs CrowdStrike vs SentinelOne for SMBs

SentinelOne vs CrowdStrike is a close call for a small business: both sell strong endpoint detection and response, but only from their middle tiers up, and the tier you buy and who watches the alerts matter more than the logo. If you already run Microsoft 365 Business Premium, start with Microsoft Defender for Business, which you already own and which covers next-generation antivirus, EDR, attack surface reduction and automated investigation from the Microsoft Defender portal. Choose CrowdStrike Falcon or SentinelOne Singularity when you need coverage the Microsoft product lacks, such as Linux workstations or more than 60 servers, a single platform for a company not standardized on Microsoft, or a managed detection and response service built on one of them.

All three are credible EDR platforms that meet what cyber insurers now ask for. The decision is about fit, price and who watches the alerts, and this comparison covers all three, with list prices as of October 2026.

What do Defender for Business, CrowdStrike and SentinelOne have in common?

All three replace traditional antivirus with an agent that watches behavior rather than matching known files. All three record what happens on the machine (processes, network connections, file changes, credential use), send that telemetry to a cloud console, flag suspicious chains of activity, and let an analyst isolate a computer from the network with one click. That is what endpoint detection and response means, and our earlier article on EDR, antivirus and MDR explains why it matters for ransomware.

All three also carry the same caveat. An EDR agent generates alerts; it does not resolve them. Somebody has to read the alert at 11 p.m. on a Saturday, decide whether it is real, and act. The product you choose is half the decision. The other half is who is on the other end of the console.

What does Defender for Business include if we already have Business Premium?

Microsoft designed Defender for Business for companies with up to 300 employees and bundled it into Microsoft 365 Business Premium, with a standalone version for businesses on other plans, as described in Microsoft's Defender for Business overview. It includes next-generation antivirus, endpoint detection and response, attack surface reduction rules that block the common ransomware tricks (Office macros launching scripts, credential theft from memory), automated investigation and remediation, and vulnerability management that shows which devices are missing patches or running risky software. Windows and Linux servers are covered through the Defender for Business servers add-on at $3 per server instance, up to 60 servers, according to Microsoft's Defender for Business FAQ, and each user license covers up to five client devices.

The practical advantage is integration. Defender for Business shares the Microsoft Defender portal with Defender for Office 365 Plan 1, which Business Premium also includes, so endpoint and email alerts are worked in one console. Full Defender XDR incident correlation across email and endpoints is listed for Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, which Business Premium customers can add through Defender Suite for Business Premium, according to Microsoft's Defender for Office 365 service description. Device compliance flows to Intune and Conditional Access, so a machine with an active alert can be blocked from opening company email until it is cleaned. For a business that already lives in Microsoft 365, that is a lot of security with nothing new to buy. Our Microsoft 365 security service is built around turning all of it on properly, which is the step most small businesses skip.

The limits are real too. Linux workstations are not on its supported list, and a company with more than 60 servers needs a different server license. Some advanced hunting and automation features are reserved for the enterprise Defender for Endpoint Plan 2. And the portal, while capable, assumes someone will log in and look.

What do CrowdStrike and SentinelOne add?

CrowdStrike Falcon is a cloud-managed platform built around a single lightweight agent. As of October 2026, CrowdStrike's pricing page sells three bundles online: Falcon Go at $59.99 per device per year for up to 100 devices, Falcon Pro at $99.99 and Falcon Enterprise at $184.99, or $7.99, $14.99 and $19.99 per device billed monthly. Among those bundles, only Falcon Enterprise includes endpoint detection and response and threat hunting; Go is next-generation antivirus with device control, and Pro adds firewall management. It covers Windows, macOS and Linux from one console, and its managed service, Falcon Complete, is one of the reasons many MDR providers build on it. CrowdStrike's threat intelligence and its visibility across a large customer base are its selling points.

SentinelOne Singularity takes a similar approach with a different emphasis. Its agent reconstructs each attack as a storyline, so an analyst sees the whole chain from the first email attachment to the last encrypted file rather than a pile of separate alerts. On Windows, its rollback feature can return files changed by ransomware to their pre-attack state using the system's snapshot capability, which has saved more than one small business a very bad week. It also covers Linux, and its managed detection and response service, Wayfinder MDR, is listed as an add-on to the Commercial and Enterprise tiers. As of October 2026, SentinelOne's package page lists Singularity Core at $69.99, Control at $79.99, Complete at $179.99 and Commercial at $229.99 per endpoint per year for 5 to 100 workstations, sold through authorized partners. Endpoint detection and response starts at Complete, which keeps 14 days of data; Core and Control do not list it. Commercial adds identity threat detection and response, 90-day retention and managed threat hunting.

Both vendors publish tiers, and the differences between tiers matter more than the differences between vendors. The entry tiers on either side are antivirus-focused: CrowdStrike Falcon Go and Pro and SentinelOne Core and Control do not list endpoint detection and response in the vendors' package tables, which start EDR at Falcon Enterprise and Singularity Complete. Compare those two tiers with each other, not an entry tier with an EDR tier. The higher tiers add identity protection, hunting and longer data retention, which is where a growing company with a security lead gets value and a ten-person office does not.

How does CrowdStrike vs SentinelOne pricing compare with Defender?

On list price, Defender for Business wins by a wide margin if you already pay for Business Premium, because it is included. As an illustration at October 2026 list prices, a 20-person office with one laptop each would pay about $720 a year for standalone Defender for Business, about $3,700 for CrowdStrike Falcon Enterprise or about $3,600 for SentinelOne Singularity Complete, before any managed service. Partner pricing, multi-year terms and managed detection and response bundles change those numbers, so compare quotes on the same device count, the same tier of detection and response, and the same promise about who responds.

What moves the price on any of the three:

• Device count, and whether servers, Linux machines and phones are included.
• The tier: antivirus-only bundles cost less than the tiers with EDR, hunting and identity protection.
• How long telemetry is kept, which matters when an incident is discovered weeks later.
• Whether a managed detection and response service is bundled, and what it is allowed to do without calling you.

Who watches the alerts?

This is the question that should drive the purchase. A business with no security staff has three options. It can rely on the automation built into the product, which handles clear-cut malware well and ambiguous activity poorly. It can buy the vendor's managed service, which puts the vendor's analysts on your alerts around the clock. Or it can contract a managed detection and response provider that runs one of these platforms for many clients and responds on your behalf.

The third option is how most small businesses end up protected, and it changes the vendor comparison. When an MDR provider does the watching, you inherit their platform choice and their playbooks, and what you should evaluate is the provider: response times in writing, what they are authorized to do without calling you, and whether they will also handle the Microsoft 365 side of an incident. We run managed detection and response that way, with the same engineers who manage the client's environment doing the responding, and our track record over three years is more than 30 ransomware incidents handled with every one fully recovered.

One lesson from the CrowdStrike outage in July 2024 applies to every vendor here: any agent with deep access to the operating system can take a machine down if an update goes wrong. Ask how updates are staged and whether you can hold a ring of devices back. We wrote up the continuity lessons from that day at the time.

Which one do cyber insurers accept?

All three. Insurance applications in 2026 ask whether you run endpoint detection and response on every workstation and server, whether it is monitored around the clock, and whether multi-factor authentication covers email and remote access. They rarely name vendors. Defender for Business, Falcon and Singularity each satisfy the EDR line, and the monitoring line is answered by whoever watches the console. Our guide to cyber insurance requirements lists the controls underwriters ask about, and the answer you give should match what is on the machines, because a claim can turn on it.

Which endpoint platform should a small business choose?

Choose Defender for Business if you are on Microsoft 365 Business Premium and your fleet is Windows and Mac. You already own it, it integrates with the identity and email protection you also own, and the money you save belongs in monitoring, backups and training rather than a second EDR license. Choose CrowdStrike or SentinelOne if you have Linux workstations or more than 60 servers, a fleet that is not standardized on Microsoft, a security lead who will use the hunting and retention features, or an MDR provider whose service is built on one of them. If you are choosing an MDR provider first, let their platform decision stand and judge them on the service.

Do not run two of these on the same computer. One EDR agent per device, configured fully, with the portal watched by someone accountable, beats two half-configured agents fighting over the same processes.

Frequently asked questions

Is Defender for Business good enough for a small business?

Yes, for a company on Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Windows and Mac devices, provided it is fully configured and someone monitors it. It includes antivirus, endpoint detection and response, attack surface reduction and automated investigation, and it ties into Intune and Conditional Access. Its gaps are Linux workstations, the 60-server ceiling on its servers add-on, and the advanced hunting features reserved for the enterprise plan, which most small businesses do not use.

Is CrowdStrike or SentinelOne better for a small business?

Both are strong, and the difference between their tiers matters more than the difference between the vendors. Compare Falcon Enterprise with Singularity Complete, the first tiers on each side that include endpoint detection and response. CrowdStrike is known for its threat intelligence and its managed service; SentinelOne is known for attack storylines and Windows rollback. For a small business, the practical answer is usually whichever one your managed detection and response provider runs, because the provider's response is what you are paying for.

How does Defender for Endpoint compare with CrowdStrike and SentinelOne?

Defender for Endpoint is Microsoft's enterprise version of the same agent. Plan 1, included in Microsoft 365 E3, covers antivirus and attack surface reduction without endpoint detection and response. Plan 2, included in E5, adds EDR, automated investigation and advanced hunting, which puts it in the same class as CrowdStrike Falcon Enterprise and SentinelOne Singularity Complete. Companies over 300 users compare Plan 2 rather than Defender for Business.

What is the difference between Defender XDR and Defender for Cloud?

Microsoft Defender XDR is the layer in the Defender portal that ties endpoint, email, identity and cloud app signals into one incident. Defender for Cloud protects Azure and other cloud workloads, and its Defender for Servers plans are the enterprise route for servers, managed from the Azure portal. A small business on Business Premium mostly lives in the first and rarely needs the second.

What affects cost, rollout and support when switching EDR?

Cost follows device count, tier, server coverage and data retention, plus any managed service. The rollout is mostly logistics: deploy the new agent through Intune or your management tool, remove the old one, add exclusions for line-of-business software, and confirm every device reports in. Support comes from the vendor for the product and from whoever watches the console for incidents, so settle that second part in writing before the first alert.

Do we still need MDR if we buy CrowdStrike or SentinelOne?

You need someone to watch the console, whatever platform you buy. That can be the vendor's own managed service, a managed detection and response provider, or a security employee on call. Buying a top-tier EDR product and leaving the alerts unread is the most common mistake we see in small-business incident response, and it is the setup ransomware groups count on.

Can we run Defender for Business alongside another EDR product?

Not as two active protections on the same device. When a third-party antivirus is registered as primary on Windows, Defender's antivirus steps into passive mode, and running two EDR agents together causes performance problems and gaps in coverage. Pick one platform per device, configure it completely, and remove the old agent as part of the rollout.

If you want a straight answer on which platform fits your fleet and who should be watching it, our managed detection and response service covers the endpoint platform, around-the-clock monitoring and response on a month-to-month agreement, and a free Tier 1 external penetration test will show you what an attacker sees from outside before you decide anything.