What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for advanced protection against threats for our endpoints.
What is most valuable?
What I have found to be valuable is after every new release of the solution there are more features. At the time that we bought Bitdefender GravityZone, it was their top solution. We went from their Enterprise version to Elite, Elite HD, Ultra, and now there is an Ultra Plus available.
Overall the solution is working well, it can be a little intense and thorough at times, but I would rather have it be a little bit more thorough than not detect what it is supposed to. We have been running the solution for a long time through various versions and we have not had any viruses or malware breaches.
When comparing this solution to others it performs just as well as the majority of the top-level alternatives.
What needs improvement?
The whole suite is unlike most AV consoles, which will inform you when there is an infection or threat, for some inexplicable reason Bitdefender does not do that. The most you will receive is an hourly update or possibly if there is an outbreak that affects 30% of your machines, an email. There is no real-time alerting to inform the user there was a potential attack that recently happened on their system. They could improve by having real-time reporting which is important.
I have not had used the EDR portion of the solution to do any custom scripting to allow further advanced operations on the endpoints. From what I understand from reading the comments on reviews is that it is not particularly flexible in this regard.
Sandbox Analyzer is a feature that comes as part of the Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Suite. It will start automatically unless you want to manually submit something which I have rarely done. When the feature is in use I do not get a reading back from the analyzer right away, it lacks real-time functionality. For example, if I was executing an admin tool and it was blocked because the Sandbox Analyzer wants to look at it on my local machine, it might take 10 minutes before I can successfully then launch that application to use it. The time it takes to analyze the software is too long. We are busy people and we end up just turning off the detection to allow the use of the program.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for approximately five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Bitdefender has been stable and reliable, there are a few key areas I always look for in an endpoint security platform. A few of them are, how much burden does it put on the endpoint, does it uses more than 10% of the system resources in order to function. If it does not then it is a pretty well-balanced client, it allows the systems to continue to perform at the appropriate level. If it catches a very high percentage of threats, it is doing what you bought it to do, and it does not give off a lot of false positives. However, in the EDR portion, you will receive more false positives, but outside of the EDR component with the client itself, if it has few false positives for viruses and malware detection that is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
They have done a decent job with scalability. The way they have their policies constructed and the ability to manage them.
I think that the biggest challenge for Bitdefender is simply to move out of the SMB space and really become an enterprise platform.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have been in contact with technical support a few times. They are not the worst or the best. They provide an average quality level of support.
I rate Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra technical support a seven out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Sophos and I recall, Sophos released an update for the AV software that destroyed the AV software on every endpoint that ingested it. It was a huge debacle and it took a long time to resolve because it left the solution in a state where you could not repair it, remove it, or update it.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is straightforward, simple to understand and manage.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra is less expensive than other solutions, such as CrowdStrike. We had a really good deal because it was their year-end and they were trying to do a lot of sales that week. We bought a three-year contract from them and the cost was approximately $17 per endpoint, per year. It is was a very good price. I have spoken to other people who have purchased CrowdStrike at approximately $60 per endpoint, per year. I have no complaints about the price of this solution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I put a lot of weight on third-party benchmark reviews and Bitdefender always reviews well overall on the spectrum. They review better even when compared to NSS Labs, MITRE, AV-Comparatives, and others. Bitdefender and Kaspersky both typically are the two solutions that are at the top month after month. There are the new technology solutions that are raved about often, such as SentinelOne, Cylance, and CrowdStrike, but they seldom review as well when it comes to defined tests where they test X amount of malware or types of attacks. It has been much harder to get independent confirmation of the efficacy of the new next-generation endpoint solutions than it has been to get the efficacy of the old generation products.
I am currently evaluating CrowdStrike and we considering moving to it once our Bitdefender contract is done.
What other advice do I have?
For those wanting to implement this solution, I would advise them it is worth it and to test it out.
I rate Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.