Looking for a Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 alternative?
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 (P2) builds on P1 by adding automation, investigation tools, and phishing simulations. While strong on analytics, it remains reactive and complex.
Strengths & Weaknesses of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2
| P2 Strengths | P2 Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Adds investigation tools, automation, and simulation capabilities | Can be complex and overwhelming for smaller teams |
| Good option for IT teams already invested in Microsoft’s ecosystem | Still doesn’t include outbound DLP or flexible deployment options |
| Often included in Microsoft 365 E5 or added to E3 for upgrades | Alert volume can be high and hard to manage without a SOC |
At a Glance
| Capability | Defender P2 | Libraesva Email Security |
|---|---|---|
| Anti-Spam & Phishing | AI & heuristics | Semantic & Adaptive Trust AI |
| Attachment Sandboxing | Cloud | Cloud, On-prem |
| URL Protection | ||
| Automated Response | AIR playbooks | |
| Threat Hunting | Threat Explorer | Visual dashboard |
| Outbound Filtering | ||
| Admin Experience | Complex | Streamlined, lower false positive reports |
| Teams / SharePoint Scanning |
Full Feature Breakdown
| Feature | Defender P2 | Libraesva Email Security |
|---|---|---|
| Message, body & header scanning | Enhanced anti-phishing policies with mailbox intelligence | Semantic AI content analysis & Adaptive Trust AI Engine |
| Attachment inspection & quarantine | P1 features plus enhanced reporting | QuickSand sandbox, local/hybrid detonation |
| URL analysis & protection | Real-time URL threat intel & scanning (P1 + advanced) | URLSand, real-time URL scanning and blocking |
| Threat investigation & hunting | Threat Explorer, Campaign views (attack investigation) | Visual dashboards, search for threats, investigation workflows |
| Automated incident response | Defender AIR (auto-investigation & remediation playbooks) | One-click remediation across mailboxes via API |
| User awareness & phishing simulation | Attack Simulation Training (phish simulations built-in) | PhishBrain option for simulations & training |
| Core anti-spam & malware filtering | Included (same EOP + P1 capabilities) | Multi-engine filtering + API filtering |
| Outbound protection (DLP + anti-spam) | Outbound DLP rules, encryption triggers, anti-spam | |
| Email archiving & retention | Email Archiver option | |
| eDiscovery & legal hold | Email Archiver option | |
| Audit log retention | Email Archiver option | |
| Encryption | Policy-based AES-256 encryption | |
| Insider risk monitoring | Adaptive Trust AI identifies insider threats & account compromise | |
| Business analytics & reporting | Admin dashboards with trends, reporting API, KPIs for email security | |
| Deployment | Cloud-only (Office 365 service) | Cloud, on-prem, private cloud (multi-tenant or dedicated) |
| Integration | Microsoft-centric (Defender API, integration with Microsoft ecosystem) | Open integration: REST API, syslog, SIEM/SOAR; M365 & Google |
| Social graph / identity heuristics | Limited impersonation rules using heuristic detection for lookalike domains | Social graph models normal communication patterns to detect anomalies |
| Voice / collaboration features |
FAQ
What is Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 (P2)?
How is Defender P2 different from Plan 1 (P1)?
What are the main strengths of Defender P2?
What are common limitations of Defender P2?
Does Defender P2 include outbound filtering or outbound DLP?
Why replace Defender P2 with Libraesva?
When does it make sense to layer Libraesva with Defender P2?
How does phishing protection compare between Defender P2 and Libraesva?
How does attachment sandboxing compare?
How do threat hunting and investigations compare?
How do automated response capabilities compare?
What about Teams / SharePoint scanning?
What deployment and integration options differ the most?
What is a real-world risk of relying on a single layer?
Libraesva Email Security sees what others miss
Understand the message
Semantic AI goes beyond keywords and reads the intent behind every email, catching impersonation and AI-written deception others ignore.
Know what “normal” looks like
Adaptive Trust AI continuously maps your organization’s communication patterns to flag unusual interactions and behavioral anomalies in real-time.
Layers of defense
Secure gateway scanning with deep AI stops threats at every stage. Semantic and Adaptive Trust AI detect deception, while sandboxing and URL checks stop what others miss.
Trusted by companies like these
Libraesva delivers layered, AI driven defense to protect businesses and people against modern email threats.
Libraesva focuses on pre-delivery prevention and simpler management, providing superior phishing catch rates and flexible outbound protection, reducing alerts and workload for SOC teams.
