Sentinel Compared

Microsoft Sentinel overlaps with several other technologies, particularly Microsoft Defender XDR (formerly Microsoft 365 Defender) and Log Analytics.

Microsoft Defender XDR combines the four Microsoft Defender security monitoring and remediation services (Endpoint, Identity, Office 365, and Cloud Apps) into a single portal along with Entra ID signals. The portal offers similar Kusto query language (KQL), hunting capabilities, and incident correlation between the Defender services. 
The primary benefit of Sentinel beyond the capabilities of Microsoft Defender XDR is the ability of Sentinel to include events from other Microsoft and third-party sources to provide a more comprehensive security incident view across all of an organization’s software, services, and security hardware. Microsoft Defender XDR incidents can be viewed or modified within Sentinel, and any changes made within Sentinel will be visible in Microsoft Defender XDR.

Log Analytics, a component of the Azure Monitor family, stores log data in workspaces and provides a query engine and editor that uses KQL to create reports and charts. Log Analytics is core to the operation of Sentinel, and Sentinel offers many shared capabilities, including KQL, alert generation, and response automation using playbooks. The primary benefits of Sentinel beyond the capabilities of Log Analytics are Sentinel’s dashboards and hunting tools, machine learning capabilities designed to help identify security incidents, and Sentinel’s gradual integration with Microsoft Defender XDR.