CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Cayosoft vs Malwarebytes

Cayosoft sells products for managing and protecting Microsoft environments, covering security and control across Active Directory, Azure AD, Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online. Malwarebytes sells antivirus, VPN, identity theft protection and scam detection software for personal devices such as computers, tablets and phones. CISO Tribune files both under Identity threat detection and response. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Cayosoft
  • Malwarebytes
Cayosoft vs Malwarebytes: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
CayosoftCayosoft sells products for managing and protecting Microsoft environments, covering security and control across Active Directory, Azure AD, Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online.cayosoft.comMalwarebytesMalwarebytes sells antivirus, VPN, identity theft protection and scam detection software for personal devices such as computers, tablets and phones.malwarebytes.com
What it sells
  • Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore[5]Monitors all directory changes and lets administrators roll back those changes.
  • Guardian Protector[4][5]A free, agentless tool for continuous monitoring and real-time threat detection.
  • Cayosoft Management and Protection Suite[6]A suite that includes Cayosoft Administrator and Cayosoft Guardian standard.
  • Cayosoft Group Policy Management[12]Governs, documents and restores GPO changes across every domain.
  • Premium Security[4][5]Antivirus designed to protect personal devices and data in real-time.
  • Browser Guard[4][5]Blocks unwanted and unsafe content while browsing.
  • Privacy VPN[4][14]A VPN for staying secure and private on Wi-Fi or hotspots.
  • Identity Theft Protection[4][5]Scans the dark web and other sources for personal information.
  • Mobile Security[4][5][7]Malware detection before installation on Android devices.
  • Android Virus Scan[7]A free Android virus scan for malware, spyware, keyloggers and more.
Categories
Headquarters
Westerville, United States[1]Santa Clara, United States[3]
Founded
Not stated on its pages2008[2][4]
Ownership and funding
Privately held[4]Not stated on its pages
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
Not stated on its pages
  • October 5, 2026Malwarebytes launched Scam Link Check, a free web tool that lets anyone check whether a website link is safe before clicking it.[19]
  • July 22, 2026Malwarebytes appointed Michael Weissman to its Board of Directors and hired Joey Klein as Senior Vice President of Product.[20]
  • July 22, 2026Malwarebytes appointed Netspend CEO Michael Weissman to its board.[10]
  • June 3, 2026Malwarebytes launched a free reverse phone check for consumers to identify potential scam numbers.[9]
  • May 6, 2026Malwarebytes appointed Chung Ip as Chief Financial Officer.[18]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen November 3, 2026[11]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
Not written yetFrom its own pages, Malwarebytes sells mainly to individuals and families who want to protect personal devices. Its pages also reference security for personal and business devices and for a team's devices. Malwarebytes offers protection for Windows, Mac, Chromebook, Android, and iOS devices.
Last verified
September 27, 2026November 9, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Cayosoft and Malwarebytes are both filed under Identity threat detection and response.
  • Both are headquartered in the United States.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Cayosoft's primary category is Directory backup and recovery; Malwarebytes's is EDR and XDR.
  • Cayosoft is also filed under Identity governance and administration. Malwarebytes is also filed under MDR and managed SOC.
  • Cayosoft lists Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore, Guardian Protector, Cayosoft Management and Protection Suite and Cayosoft Group Policy Management. Malwarebytes lists Premium Security, Browser Guard, Privacy VPN, Identity Theft Protection, Mobile Security and 1 more.
  • Cayosoft is headquartered in Westerville, United States. Malwarebytes is headquartered in Santa Clara, United States.
  • Malwarebytes was founded in 2008.
  • Cayosoft is privately held.

What it sells: Cayosoft

What Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore does[5]
Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore monitors all directory changes and lets administrators roll back those changes. Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore is for recovering and protecting Active Directory and hybrid AD data.
What Cayosoft Management and Protection Suite does[6]
The Cayosoft Management and Protection Suite includes Cayosoft Administrator and Cayosoft Guardian standard, to manage, monitor and recover hybrid Microsoft directories, users, groups and other critical objects and settings. The suite can be expanded by adding Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery, which protects Active Directory from ransomware and other full forest directory outages.
What Cayosoft Group Policy Management does[12]
Cayosoft Group Policy Management governs, documents and restores GPO changes across every domain. Each GPO moves through edit, check-in, submit, approve and deploy steps so that only approved policy reaches Active Directory. Each checked-in version is archived rather than overwritten, supporting comparison, documentation, rollback to a known-good state and audit review.

What it sells: Malwarebytes

What Premium Security does[4][5]
Malwarebytes Premium Security is an antivirus solution designed to protect personal devices and data in real-time. Malwarebytes says Premium Security stops sophisticated cyber threats that traditional antivirus tools often miss.
What Privacy VPN does[4][14]
Malwarebytes Privacy VPN helps people stay secure and private when using Wi-Fi or hotspots. Malwarebytes Privacy VPN can be used on iPhones and iPads, as well as Android, Windows, and Mac. Malwarebytes Privacy is a no-log VPN that never tracks, stores, or shares any of your network data.
What Identity Theft Protection does[4][5]
Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection scans the dark web and other sources for personal information. It provides live agent-supported identity recovery, credit monitoring, and reporting, backed by up to $2 million in identity theft insurance.
What Mobile Security does[4][5][7]
Malwarebytes Mobile Security detects before installation some of the most harmful malware, including trojans, spyware and ransomware. Malwarebytes Mobile Security is free to download on both Google Play and the App store.
What Android Virus Scan does[7]
Malwarebytes offers a free Android virus scan to protect a phone from hackers and cyber threats like malware, spyware, keyloggers and more. Malwarebytes alerts people before they install and run potentially harmful software or apps on an Android device.

Questions about Cayosoft and Malwarebytes

What do Cayosoft and Malwarebytes sell?
Cayosoft sells Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore, Guardian Protector, Cayosoft Management and Protection Suite and Cayosoft Group Policy Management. Malwarebytes sells Premium Security, Browser Guard, Privacy VPN, Identity Theft Protection, Mobile Security and 1 more.
Are Cayosoft and Malwarebytes in the same category?
They share Identity threat detection and response. Cayosoft's primary category is Directory backup and recovery and Malwarebytes's is EDR and XDR.
Where are Cayosoft and Malwarebytes headquartered?
Cayosoft is headquartered in Westerville, United States. Malwarebytes is headquartered in Santa Clara, United States.
When were Cayosoft and Malwarebytes founded?
Malwarebytes was founded in 2008.
Who owns Cayosoft and Malwarebytes?
Cayosoft is privately held.
Who are Cayosoft and Malwarebytes sold to?
From its own pages, Malwarebytes sells mainly to individuals and families who want to protect personal devices.
What have Cayosoft and Malwarebytes announced recently?
October 5, 2026: Malwarebytes launched Scam Link Check, a free web tool that lets anyone check whether a website link is safe before clicking it.

About Cayosoft

Cayosoft sells products for managing and protecting Microsoft environments, covering security and control across Active Directory, Azure AD, Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online. Cayosoft products are designed for any step in the journey to Microsoft 365. Cayosoft solutions are purpose-built to help manage and protect Microsoft environments that are on-premises, hybrid or Microsoft 365-only. Cayosoft licenses its products by subscription.[5][6]

Cayosoft Administrator offers role-based delegation, rule-based automation, self-service and Microsoft 365 license optimization. Cayosoft Administrator enables IT teams to manage hybrid environments through a single interface. Cayosoft Administrator is a unified TrueHybrid management solution for control over administrators and help desk staff who make changes to Microsoft enterprise systems. Granular Roles and Rules limit administrators to authorized tasks.[5][7]

Cayosoft Administrator comes with more than 125 pre-built templates and requires no extra SQL, LDAP or synchronization. Administrators can run real-time reports on Office 365 or schedule those reports for e-mail delivery, local storage or shared storage. Cayosoft provides pre and post-collection filtering, and reports can be viewed in email, Excel or CSV. Cayosoft offers user-enabled password resets so that users can remedy lockouts without IT assistance. Direct report management lets users update their own attributes and those of subordinates in a web-based self-service portal. Cayosoft puts on-premises AD and Office 365 into one interface for help desk admins, with filtered access to only the necessary tasks.[8][9]

Inclusion Rules define the list of users that must be in a group, and Exclusion Rules define the list of users who should never be in it. Group membership updates can be triggered by events like user provisioning or user deprovisioning, or run on a schedule. Built-in group membership queries can be added to group membership rules to update any Microsoft group type, from Active Directory and Exchange to Azure AD and Microsoft 365 Groups. Self-service group management lets distribution list, application and data owners manage who has access to their resources. Cayosoft Administrator brings Teams administration with delegation, automatically updated groups and Teams membership, telephony management and policy assignment control. Cayosoft manages the available phone numbers, reclaims numbers when users leave and assigns Teams user policies required for Direct Routing. Cayosoft can alert and roll back undesired changes when they are detected.[10][11]

Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore monitors all directory changes and lets administrators roll back those changes. Recovery scenarios covered include AD object and attribute, partition, domain controller and forest recovery. Cayosoft supports cutting over to a clean, isolated, standby forest. Guardian Protector is a free, agentless tool that delivers continuous monitoring, real-time threat detection and audit-ready visibility across Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID and key Microsoft 365 services, without time limits or object caps. Cayosoft monitors human and non-human identity activity and supports rollback.[2][5]

The Cayosoft Management and Protection Suite is purpose-built for modern Microsoft environments. The Cayosoft Management and Protection Suite includes Cayosoft Administrator and Cayosoft Guardian standard, to manage, monitor and recover hybrid Microsoft directories, users, groups and other critical objects and settings. The suite can be expanded by adding Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery, which protects Active Directory from ransomware and other full forest directory outages.[5][6]

Cayosoft Group Policy Management governs, documents and restores GPO changes across every domain. Each GPO moves through edit, check-in, submit, approve and deploy steps so that only approved policy reaches Active Directory. Active Directory remains unchanged until an approved version is explicitly deployed. Each checked-in version is archived rather than overwritten, supporting comparison, documentation, rollback to a known-good state and audit review. Editing, approval and export or deployment rights can be assigned to different users or groups. Microsoft ended support for Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) on April 14, 2026, with no direct successor. Cayosoft provides a supported approach to Group Policy management with check-in and check-out, approvals, version control, role delegation, analysis, rollback and multi-domain governance.[12]

Cayosoft serves school districts and universities of all sizes, for students, faculty and staff. Cayosoft Administrator provides automated account provisioning and deprovisioning, group management, role-based delegation and group-based license assignment. A large U.S. state replaced a legacy AD management tool with Cayosoft Administrator. The IRS consolidated multiple identity management tools into Cayosoft.[2][3][13][14]

Cayosoft on the record

Sources

Cayosoft full record

  1. [1]AboutCayosoft · cayosoft.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]cayosoft.comCayosoft · cayosoft.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Cayosoft achieves record sales company growthCayosoft · cayosoft.com · published April 17, 2024 · Tier A
  4. [4]Cayosoft – Hybrid Active Directory Management & Recovery PlatformCayosoft · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Products - CayosoftCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Manage and Protect Microsoft AD and O365 for EnterprisesCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Hybrid Active Directory and Office 365 AdministrationCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Active Directory Reporting - Unified AD ReportingCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Hybrid Microsoft AD Self-Service and Help DeskCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Dynamic Groups - CayosoftCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Microsoft Teams ManagementCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Group Policy Management That Controls Every Change | Cayosoft Group Policy ManagementCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Manage and Protect Microsoft AD and O365 for K-12 school districts and higher educationCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Manage and Protect Microsoft AD and O365 for state, local and federal governmentCayosoft · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A

Malwarebytes full record

  1. [1]threatdown.comMalwarebytes (ThreatDown) · threatdown.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Malwarebytes announces acquisition of leading online privacy company cyrus 301908393Malwarebytes via PR Newswire · prnewswire.com · published August 24, 2023 · Tier A
  3. [3]CompanyMalwarebytes · malwarebytes.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]All-in-One Protection: Antivirus, VPN & Scam Guard | Best AntivirusMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Scam detector | Real-time free scam detection for iOS and AndroidMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]How to Speed Up Your Computer | MalwarebytesMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Android Virus Scan | Scan your Android phone for virusesMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Malwarebytes Appoints Chung Ip as Chief Financial OfficerMalwarebytes · published May 6, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Malwarebytes Launches Free Reverse Phone Check to Help Consumers Identify Potential Scam NumbersMalwarebytes · published June 3, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Malwarebytes Strengthens Consumer Growth Strategy with Appointment of Netspend CEO Michael Weissman to BoardMalwarebytes · published July 22, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Malwarebytes for Teams Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier C
  12. [12]Antivirus with VPN | MalwarebytesMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Malwarebytes tools & solutionsMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Ad Blocker for iPhone | Ad Blocker for iOSMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]VPN for crypto | MalwarebytesMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Antivirus for Gaming | Antivirus for Gaming PCMalwarebytes · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Malwarebytes Brings Real-time Scam Detection and Threat Intelligence to AI Conversations with Claude ConnectorMalwarebytes · published April 29, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Malwarebytes Appoints Chung Ip as Chief Financial OfficerPR Newswire · published May 6, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]Malwarebytes Launches Free Scam Link Check So Anyone Can Verify a Link is Safe Before They ClickMalwarebytes · published October 5, 2026 · Tier A
  20. [20]Malwarebytes Strengthens Consumer Growth Strategy with Appointment of Netspend CEO Michael Weissman to BoardPR Newswire · published July 22, 2026 · Tier A

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