Cybersecurity · head to head
Microsoft Defender vs Syft
Microsoft Defender
Cybersecurity
Always-on protection for you and your family's data and devices
- From
- $12/month
- Rated
- -
Syft
Cybersecurity
Generates a software bill of materials from images, filesystems and archives
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Syft has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Microsoft Defender defender Suite requires existing Microsoft 365 E3 or equivalent base licensing; Syft lockfile parsing can drop packages silently. An open issue filed in August 2026 reports the yarn v1 cataloguer returning 118 of 745 packages with no error raised, which means a complete bill of materials and an 84 percent incomplete one look identical to the caller.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Microsoft Defender and Syft actually diverge.
| Attribute | Microsoft Defender | Syft |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $12/month | Free |
| Pricing model | subscription | Open source, no licence fee |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Platforms | Web | macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker |
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Microsoft Defender
Nothing recorded that Syft does not also cover.
Only in Syft
- Multi-format output
- Broad ecosystem coverage
- Binary classifiers
- In-toto attestations
- Library and CLI
- Pairs with Grype
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Microsoft Defender
- Endpoint security and threat protectionnot Syft
- Identity and access securitynot Syft
- Email threat protectionnot Syft
- SaaS application security monitoringnot Syft
Syft
- Producing a bill of materials for a customer or regulator that requires onenot Microsoft Defender
- Feeding an inventory into a vulnerability scanner rather than scanning images directlynot Microsoft Defender
- Recording what shipped in a build so a future disclosure can be answered quicklynot Microsoft Defender
- Public sector work where an SBOM is a contractual deliverablenot Microsoft Defender
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Microsoft Defender
- Defender Suite requires existing Microsoft 365 E3 or equivalent base licensing
- Some Defender products use pay-as-you-go pricing with variable costs
- Prices vary based on Microsoft agreements, requiring sales contact for custom quotes
Syft
- Lockfile parsing can drop packages silently. An open issue filed in August 2026 reports the yarn v1 cataloguer returning 118 of 745 packages with no error raised, which means a complete bill of materials and an 84 percent incomplete one look identical to the caller.
- Fidelity varies sharply by ecosystem. Conan for C and C++, Haskell and Terraform get cataloguer support with no licence data, no dependency relationships and no file ownership, so a C and C++ shop gets the least from it.
- Binary classification yields no licence or dependency metadata, and vendored or statically linked code is exactly where supply chain risk hides, so the blind spot and the risk overlap.
- Incorrect CPE values and CPE collisions are recorded as open issues, and since Grype matches on CPE and PURL, an inventory error becomes a false negative in the security report downstream.
- An inventory is not a risk assessment. Even a perfect bill of materials says a vulnerable version is present, never that the vulnerable function is called, and the triage burden lands entirely on the reader.
Pricing, plan by plan
Microsoft Defender
$12/month- Microsoft Defender Suite$12/month
- Endpoint protection
- Identity threat detection
- Email security
- Microsoft 365 E5 with Defender$60/month
- Includes Defender Suite
- Microsoft Teams included
- Comprehensive security and compliance
- Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management Add-on$2/month
- Vulnerability scanning and management
- One-month free trial available
- Annual commitment required
Syft
Free- SyftFree
- Apache-2.0
- No usage limits
- Community support
- Anchore Enterprise$undefined/year
- Policy enforcement and reporting
- Federal and commercial tiers
- Pricing not published, quoted on request
Which should you pick?
Choose Microsoft Defender if
Nothing in the data separates Microsoft Defender from Syft on the points above - pick on price and on how each one feels to use.
Choose Syft if
- You need multi-format output.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
- You also want broad ecosystem coverage.
Questions people ask
- Is Microsoft Defender or Syft better?
- Neither clearly leads. Microsoft Defender starts at $12/month and Syft at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Microsoft Defender or Syft?
- Syft has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $12/month for Microsoft Defender and Free for Syft.
- Does Microsoft Defender or Syft run on more platforms?
- Microsoft Defender runs on Web. Syft runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
- Can I use Syft for free?
- Yes. Syft has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Microsoft Defender starts at $12/month.
- What is Microsoft Defender best used for?
- Microsoft Defender is most often used for endpoint security and threat protection, identity and access security, email threat protection, saas application security monitoring. Of those, endpoint security and threat protection and identity and access security are not what Syft is typically brought in for.
- What can Microsoft Defender do that Syft cannot?
- Syft covers Multi-format output, Broad ecosystem coverage, Binary classifiers, In-toto attestations.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Microsoft Defender: How much does Microsoft Defender Suite cost?
Microsoft Defender Suite costs $12/user/month (paid yearly), but requires existing Microsoft 365 E3 or equivalent base licensing. It includes endpoint protection, identity threat detection, email security, and SaaS application monitoring.
SourceSyft: Does Syft find vulnerabilities?
No. It produces an inventory. Grype, from the same company, matches that inventory against vulnerability feeds. They are separate tools and the distinction is frequently lost.
Microsoft Defender: What add-ons are available for Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management Add-on costs $2/user/month with annual commitment and includes a one-month free trial. Additional pay-as-you-go products include External Attack Surface Management, Cloud Security Posture Management, and Sentinel.
SourceSyft: Does anything in the Anchore stack do reachability analysis?
No. Neither Syft, Grype nor the commercial Anchore platform performs call graph or reachability analysis, so none of them tells you whether a vulnerable code path is actually invoked.
Microsoft Defender: Is Defender included in Microsoft 365 E5?
Yes, Microsoft Defender Suite is included in Microsoft 365 E5 at $60/user/month (paid yearly with Teams). Prices may vary based on Microsoft agreements, requiring contact with Sales for customized quotes.
SourceSyft: Is it a CNCF or OpenSSF project?
No. It is single-vendor open source owned by Anchore, with no foundation governance. That is a different licence risk profile from Sigstore.
Syft: What does Anchore Enterprise cost?
Not published. The pricing page is contact-sales only, with named but unpriced commercial and federal tiers.
Syft: How do I know my SBOM is complete?
You largely cannot, which is the honest answer. Silent partial parsing is a known open defect, so a bill of materials used for compliance should be spot-checked against a known dependency list.
Related pages
More on Microsoft Defender
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