We performed a comparison between Fortinet Forticlient and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both solutions have a valuable set of features and are considered to have good pricing. Users seem to give Fortinet Forticlient slightly better ratings because its deployment is easier than that of Microsoft Defender For Endpoint.
"he solution is an anti-malware product that integrates well with other vendor products such as firewalls, SIEM, etc. It captures threat intelligence and gives you better visibility. The product also has sandboxing features."
"Exceptions are easy to create and the interface is easy to follow with a nice appearance."
"It is stable and scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the analysis, because of the beta structure."
"NGAV and EDR features are outstanding."
"Fortinet has helped free up around 20 percent of our staff's time to help us out."
"Ability to get forensics details and also memory exfiltration."
"It notifies us if there's any suspicious file on any PC. If any execution or similar kind of thing is happening, it just alerts us. It doesn't only alert. It also blocks the execution until we allow it. We check whether the execution is legitimate or not, and then approve it or keep it blocked. This gives us a little bit of control over this mechanism. Fortinet FortiEDR is also very straightforward and easy to maintain."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiClient is its performance."
"FortiClient has good signatures, good protection and, up until recently, it integrated really well with our firewall."
"This solution makes it easier to work from home."
"It is very easy and useful. A normal user with basic information can easily connect to any environment."
"The most valuable features are malware detection, integrates well with other solutions, and ease of use for all users."
"Remote connectivity is its most valuable feature."
"The connection speed is fast. I can connect quickly at any time, and there are never any interruptions to the FortiClient connection. I could easily code into the client's server with that connection, with no lag."
"The initial setup is very good."
"Defender is stable enough and is competitive with the other products in the market."
"The most valuable features are that it is flexible, and it is integrated with Microsoft products."
"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use and the updates are very simple."
"The solution has an easy-to-use interface, is always updated, and is user-friendly."
"One of the valuable features of the solution is the small updates that keep my machine relatively clean from any infections."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy to load and it runs quietly in the background, unlike other solutions."
"The whole bundle of the product, which is similar to other Microsoft products, is valuable. Ten years ago, you had third-party stuff for different things. You had one solution for email archiving and another third-party one for something else. Nowadays, Microsoft Office covers all the stuff that was formerly covered by third-party solutions. It is the same with antivirus. The functionality is just basic. You have the scanning, and then you also have a kind of cloud-based protection and reporting about your environment. With Microsoft Security Center, you have a complete overview of your environment. You know the software inventory, and you have security recommendations. You can not only see that the antivirus is up to date; you can also see where are the vulnerabilities in your system. Microsoft Security Center tells you where you have old, deprecated software and what kind of CVEs are addressed. It's really cool stuff."
"The best feature is the fact that for certain mobiles you can control your corporate profiles versus your personal profiles. That is amazingly important. Apple just supported the separation of corporate and personal profiles, whereas Android has been doing that for quite some time... Because Android supports that, if an Android phone is lost or stolen, I can wipe out all the corporate-related information from that phone and not touch the personal side. I can separate the apps and I can separate the ability to cut and paste between apps."
"The EDR console should have more extensive reporting. You shouldn't need to purchase FortiAnalyzer. It should be included in the EDR part. The security adviser cloud platform could be improved with more options for exclusive or intensive rules for devices."
"They can include the automation for the realtime updates. We have a network infrastructure with remote sites. Whenever they send updates, they are not automated. We have to go into the console and push those updates. I wish it was more automated. The update file is currently around 31 MB. It could be smaller."
"ZTNA can improve latency."
"We'd like to see more one-to-one product presentations for the distribution channels."
"The SIEM could be improved."
"Everything with Fortinet having to do with their cloud services. They need to invest more in their internal infrastructure that they are running in the cloud. One of the things I find with their cloud environment compared to others' is that they go cheap on the equipment. So it causes some performance degradation."
"Detections could be improved."
"I think cloud security and SASE are areas of concern in the product where improvements are required. The tool's cloud version has to be improved in terms of the security it offers."
"In the next release, I would like to see an additional layer of security added."
"With the lower-end licenses, it tends to kick you out after eight hours. There is a function where it automatically kicks you out after eight hours. They could improve that and not kick you out after eight hours. Other than that, it is already pretty good."
"Compatibility issues between different versions."
"The current version of this solution does not show the malicious websites that have been visited. They should add this to an upcoming release."
"We've had some problems with having to remove the current version and either reinstalling an old version or updating to the new one."
"With Fortinet, some clients have to wait two to four days for a response. That is the biggest complaint from end customer about Fortinet's technical support."
"More integration would be beneficial."
"We'd like to see a deployment wizard to help implementation become streamlined."
"In terms of improvement, they update the platform it seems quite a bit. Every month something is in a new spot or something changed somewhere. There should be less of that."
"The product development team makes frequent changes that affect the stability of the solution."
"The frequency of the patching, and the frequency of the updates, are not included with the free version."
"There could be an increase in security for the solution."
"Integration with third-party vendors could be better. It would be better if it integrates with other protection solutions or other products outside of Microsoft. Nowadays, anti-virus protection doesn't really have to be planned as overall protection for your environment in terms of security. There are really different avenues that bad actors can take to wreak havoc on your machine."
"They should come up with pre-built inner workflows."
"The file scanning has room for improvement. Many people use macros within their files, so there should be a mechanism that helps us to scan them for malicious payloads."
"Cortex... has good investigation capabilities, out-of-the-box, in case there is an event that you'd like to investigate. It's quite convenient. Microsoft has those capabilities as well, but you need a bit more training on the product to get the basic information that you can get out-of-the-box with Cortex."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Fortinet FortiClient is ranked 15th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 86 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. Fortinet FortiClient is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiClient writes "Easy to set up and user-friendly with good support ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "Eliminates the need to look at multiple dashboards by automatically providing one XDR dashboard to show the security score of each subscription". Fortinet FortiClient is most compared with OpenVPN Access Server, Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, Ivanti Connect Secure and CrowdStrike Falcon, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon and Check Point Harmony Endpoint. See our Fortinet FortiClient vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
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We monitor all Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
