Huntress vs. CIPP
The Managed Security Layer Your Toolkit Can't Be.
CIPP is the best free Microsoft 365 admin plane in the MSP channel. It handles user lifecycle, licensing, offboarding, and standards deployment better than most paid tools. But here's what it doesn't do: own the work. CIPP hands you the settings and the homework. Huntress Managed ISPM defines the gold-standard Microsoft 365 hardening framework, deploys it, enforces it against drift, and when paired with Huntress Managed ITDR, gives you SOC response when something slips through anyway.
- Proactive Drift Remediation: CIPP detects drift on a scan cadence and generates a report for the partner to fix manually. In contrast, Huntress catches policy drift within minutes of a change. We perform the remediation for you, ensuring your team isn't left carrying the burden of manual analysis and cleanup.
- Impact Analysis and Automation: The number one reason Microsoft 365 hardening never gets done is the fear of breaking production. While CIPP requires manual analysis and enforcement, Huntress Managed ISPM automatically analyzes sign-in logs during Learning Mode. We auto-enable policies when no risks are found and only escalate for intervention when a change truly requires human judgment.
- Detection and Response When Posture Isn't Enough: CIPP can fire rules-based alerts and run scripted remediation you configure and maintain. Huntress Managed ITDR sits on the same platform as Managed ISPM with a SOC that protects 12 million identities, to catch token theft, rogue OAuth apps, session hijacking, and BEC with a 3-minute mean time to respond.
CIPP + Huntress
Fully managed: Huntress owns the framework, deployment, and continuous enforcement. The MSP owns none of the operational work.
Toolkit: CIPP provides the console and reports. The MSP owns the baseline, policy design, drift cleanup, and maintenance.
Auto-revert drift within minutes with rollback and prior-state capture. Continuous enforcement without manual intervention.
Detects drift on scan cadence (based on configured schedule). The MSP reviews the report and fixes it manually.
Learning Mode runs new policies in report-only first, showing exactly who would be affected before enforcement.
No equivalent built-in pre-deployment testing layer; changes typically go live without the same level of impact preview.
Managed ITDR on the same platform: detects and contains token theft, rogue OAuth, session hijacking, BEC. 3-minute MTTR, sub-5% false positives.
Rules-based alerts and scripted actions the MSP configures and maintains..
Controls prioritized by tradecraft from 12M+ identities and a 24/7 SOC. Fix what stops current attacks, not just compliance checklists.
Driven by Secure Score, CIS, and NIST lists. Compliance-focused, not threat-informed.
Not what we do. Onboarding, offboarding, and license management live in your admin tools, not your security platform.
Deep, broad, one-portal admin: user lifecycle, mailboxes, licensing, offboarding, group management across all tenants.
Per identity (per user). Higher upfront cost, but labor is included.
Free or low-cost to license (self-hosted or hosted). Low sticker price, but hidden labor cost in upkeep, policy design, and drift cleanup.
No browser extension today.
Check: free, open-source browser extension that blocks AITM phishing at the login page. Optional CIPP reporting.
Managed framework owned by Huntress experts: continuously audits and enforces M365 configurations, shuts down attack paths, and hardens identities with SOC-backed policy management.
Years in market. Broad, stable, field-proven admin and posture toolkit.
Why Businesses Choose Huntress
Purpose-Built for Microsoft 365 Identity Threats
Closes Drift, Doesn't Just Flag It
Fully Managed 24/7, No Upgrades, No Maintenance, No Operational Tax
The Managed Security Layer CIPP Doesn’t Cover
1. The Cheapest Tool Is Not the Cheapest Operating Model
CIPP's software fee is low. Free to self-host, roughly $99 a month for the hosted version. But the real cost isn't the license. It's hosting, updates, GDAP upkeep, policy design, and drift cleanup staying on your team forever. When a Conditional Access policy drifts at 2am, who finds it and who fixes it? With CIPP, that's still you. With Huntress, it's us. The sticker says one thing. The invoice 12 months later says another. Huntress includes the expertise of what to roll out, the managed deployment so it actually happens, and the continuous enforcement so it stays in place. CIPP hands you the controls and the responsibility. We hand you the outcome. And here's the proof point that closes this argument: Huntress assessed 12,000+ Microsoft 365 tenants drawn from a base where the SOC already protects 12 million identities. The gaps were everywhere. 85% weren't using system-preferred MFA. 70% didn't require MFA to join a device. 81% let non-admins create Microsoft 365 groups (an open door to internal phishing and Business Email Compromise). Secure Scores sat in the low 40s and 50s. These gaps showed up even in environments that already had Microsoft 365 security tooling in place. The problem wasn't the absence of tools; it was the lack of a managed posture model. The tools were already in place. CIPP was already running at many of those MSPs. The gaps were still wide open. That's the difference between a toolkit and a managed approach.
2. Continuous Enforcement With Rollback, Not Set-and-Hope
CIPP can detect drift on its scan cadence, usually once a day. By the time the report lands in your queue, the setting has been wrong for 24 hours. Attackers often move laterally in well under an hour once they're in; a 24-hour detection cadence leaves too much time for them to operate before anyone sees the issue. Huntress enforces continuously and auto-reverts drift within minutes. A tech disables MFA "just until this ticket is over" and forgets to re-enable it. We catch it and snap it back before the window closes. Microsoft changes a default underneath you. We make sure your policies stay up to date.
3. Impact Analysis Kills the "Scared to Break Production" Objection Cold
The most common reason Microsoft 365 hardening never gets done: teams are terrified the new policy will lock out half the company. CIPP doesn't provide a built-in way to run new Conditional Access policies in a full report-only "learning" mode before enforcement. CIPP doesn't give you a way to test before you enforce. Huntress does. Learning Mode runs new Conditional Access policies in report-only at the Microsoft end first. We watch the policy against real sign-ins for days or weeks and show you exactly who would be affected before it goes live. In one recent example, a policy was tested across 7,000 sign-ins and surfaced exactly one impacted identity (a guest user). The team made an informed call. The policy went live. Nobody got locked out. No emergency rollback. No panicked Slack thread at 9am. That's the capability that separates "we should harden this environment" from "we actually did." CIPP shows you the Secure Score and the gap. Huntress closes the gap without the production risk that keeps it open in the first place.
4. Stop Fighting Over Admin Features. Win on Managed Outcomes.
We're the managed security layer on top. CIPP handles user lifecycle, mailboxes, licensing, offboarding, and helpdesk workflows better than most paid tools. That's its home turf, and we're not trying to take it. Huntress owns the hardening framework, enforces drift, and responds when something slips through. Those jobs sit together. They don't compete. That's why many keep CIPP for day to day management, and add Huntress Managed ISPM for Microsoft 365 hardening.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Keep CIPP for your multi-tenant Microsoft 365 admin work (user lifecycle, licensing, mailboxes, offboarding). That's what it's built for, and it's very good at it. Huntress Managed ISPM and ITDR sit on top as the managed security layer. We own the hardening framework and enforce it continuously. CIPP runs your admin plane. We run your posture and your identity threat detection and response. Coexistence is the design, not a compromise.
Touching a setting is not owning a secure posture over time. CIPP detects drift on a scan cadence (based on how you configure it, often daily) and hands you the report to fix manually. Huntress enforces continuously and auto-reverts drift in roughly 15 minutes with prior-state capture. CIPP lets you configure Conditional Access. Huntress runs new policies in report-only mode first, tests them against real sign-ins, shows you exactly who would be affected, and enforces them once you're confident they won't break production. CIPP gives you the controls and the homework. We do the work.
The software fee is low. The operating cost is not. Hosting, updates, GDAP upkeep, policy design, impact analysis, and drift cleanup stay on your team with CIPP. There's a smaller upfront cost per tenant, but you pay it in man-hours every month. Huntress includes the expertise of what to roll out, the managed deployment, and continuous enforcement so it stays in place. You're not comparing license fees. You're comparing the total cost of ownership. And, for many, Managed ISPM is resellable. Partners add a couple of dollars to the managed price and position preventative Microsoft 365 hardening as a service. What you get back is the time you would otherwise spend owning it.
Yes. Managed ISPM configures whatever your tenant supports regardless of license. It does more where Entra P1 or Business Premium exists, but many of the high-risk default settings Microsoft ships don't need a premium SKU to fix. MFA enforcement, admin account protections, and guest user policies are all available in the base Microsoft 365 stack. CIPP and Huntress both work with what the tenant has. The difference is who owns the work after the tool is sold.
Huntress Managed ISPM launched Early Access in March 2026 and becamegenerally available July 1, 2026. It's newer as a posture product, and we won't pretend otherwise. But here's what to buy: the managed operating model and where it pairs with ITDR, not a feature-count tie with a toolkit that's been shipping for years. CIPP is mature and stable. Huntress is the managed version of that same job, backed by insights from a 24/7 SOC that already protects 12 million identities. You're not buying a console to operate for the next three years. You're buying the work off your plate starting now.
Not natively today. Partners who want to centralize telemetry can export CIPP data into their own log pipelines and send that telemetry into Huntress SIEM using supported ingestion methods. For now, Huntress and CIPP sit side by side: CIPP runs admin; Huntress owns posture and response. The lack of a direct, native integration doesn't change that operating model.
Stop Operating the Toolkit. Start Owning the Outcome.
