Everyone's pushing the "modern EDR" narrative. For a 5-person startup, the cost delta between Falcon and Defender is massive, but the sales decks never show the real bill.
* Falcon's per-endpoint pricing is brutal at low scale. The advertised rate is just the entry fee.
* Defender for Endpoint gets bundled with Microsoft 365, but watch for the required E5 licenses. That's a hidden 300% price hike if you're on basic plans.
* AWS integration? Both claim it. Falcon's sensor is lighter, but Defender leans on Windows security baselines you might already manage.
The real question isn't which is "better." It's which one will actually get configured by your one engineer who also does DevOps, and what you're really paying for beyond the first year. Support contracts for startups are famously terrible with both.
Read the contract