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BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

BlackBerry Cylance Cybersec...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity is 1.1%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 10.4%, down from 14.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Sooraj Makkancherrry - PeerSpot reviewer
Doesn't have daily updates, which is important for healthcare IT
I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we contact support, they tell us to update the latest agent, but we can't do that immediately due to medical device protocols and validation testing. I wish support would try to understand our issues better instead of giving this standard response. The machine learning feature they use often tells us to upgrade the agent or add things to the exclusion list, which isn't unacceptable. It's a very good and new technology as a tool and antivirus. But sometimes, it doesn't work properly with our medical devices and products, quarantining files it shouldn't even after we add them to exclusions. This is tricky for us.
John Rallo - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers excellent visibility into vulnerabilities and the attack surface itself
Attack surface reduction and limiting attack surface vectors are valuable features. It's helpful to isolate specific devices and get super granular with the features they offer. The visibility into the attack surface is good. It gets highly granular. I don't work on that side, but the people who do tell me they get more visibility.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The deployment of updates is easy."
"One of the best features of the solution is that it's easy to deploy."
"CylancePROTECT is very stable - we've had no issues with performance and no errors or bugs."
"The Application Guard and ByteGuard are useful features."
"Has good RAM capacity for the power I need"
"It provides good insight into the programs, applications, or websites that may need attention."
"It is a good endpoint solution. It is very easy to manage and detect the threat immediately. It will take the necessary actions."
"Even if an endpoint loses connection to the Internet, I know that endpoint is protected against 99.99% of the threats in the wild today."
"File protection is the most valuable feature. Antivirus security on the Level OS, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Guard for 2019."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is beneficial because we are using Microsoft Windows and all the core solutions are made by Microsoft, such as the authentic platform, operating system, and antivirus protection. It is a heterogeneous environment. We had to use third-party solutions before and update everything separately. For example, the policy for antivirus. With Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, when Microsoft Windows receives updates it will update with it. This is one main advantage of this solution."
"It automatically detects intrusion and malware."
"Integration between Microsoft products is very easy."
"The solution's threat protection is mostly AI and machine-learning based. That is the most important feature of the product. It also offers centralized management so I can remotely manage devices."
"Technical support is good."
"Microsoft Defender can block some viruses or malware. So, it can protect my files. It can save files on Office 365 OneDrive. I use encryption for some files, then I can recover them from OneDrive."
"Defender for Endpoint has one dashboard with security-related information, vulnerability-related information, and basic recommendations from Microsoft, all in different tabs. That's helpful because if we want to fix only the recommended ones, we can go fix all of them..."
 

Cons

"Making the dashboards a bit modern to make them easier to search would also be helpful."
"I would like to see a better UI in terms of sifting through more specific data and providing analytics. A little bit more would be nice."
"I would say one thing that they might need to bring in is protection for mobile devices."
"The product does not do a lot of reporting on what it is taking care of. Enhanced reporting would be a welcome improvement."
"CylancePROTECT's dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we contact support, they tell us to update the latest agent, but we can't do that immediately due to medical device protocols and validation testing. I wish support would try to understand our issues better instead of giving this standard response. The machine learning feature they use often tells us to upgrade the agent or add things to the exclusion list, which isn't unacceptable."
"While you are working, you are finding these things that were supposed to be waived have come back to being blocked. That's frustrating."
"The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required. The product's price should be more competitive."
"I have accounts for administrators and corporate employees, but I also have accounts for students. I can't split these types of accounts. I need a separate configuration for both... I need to research how I can get alerts for only the administrative machines."
"I wish they would extend the use of the Security Central portal, even for the free option of Defender. Because, as companies grow, it is labor intensive to manage the AV and detection part of it. For companies already subscribed to Office 365, I think this would be a good enhancement."
"Initially, I experienced performance issues that hampered our servers. However, after setting appropriate exclusions, everything seemed to work fine."
"It would be nice to have a paid upgrade that would provide additional screening of the day-to-day activities."
"In the next release, I would like to see better management reporting."
"It is not very scalable from the eyes of an MSP because there is no dashboard that you can use to see all of your devices that have Windows Defender unless you have your own dashboard or an RMM tool to actually look at it. So, you might not get to know that a particular computer of a client is doing something, and it might have got a virus. That person might know that, but unless you set it up to actually send you the information, you won't get to know that. That's one of the things that is hard with Microsoft Defender. It is not made for the MSP world where you have one pane of glass to see all of your clients with Microsoft Defender on it unless your RMM tool already has that built-in and it can see the telemetry from Microsoft Defender."
"I would like to see online updates for patches for this solution. I would also like to see online information about what is trending in the market in terms of spams, viruses, or trojans. It takes some time to understand how this solution works. A few things are unclear at the beginning, such as whether it actually restricts the virus or spam at the initial stage, or when there is a security update, how will we come to know and how will it get synchronized. It would be really helpful if there is some kind of knowledge base in the form of video, audio, or document that can explain in a user-friendly way the setup, features, risks, and process to mitigate the risks. Currently, I have installed endpoint security for every individual system. I could not install it like other endpoint solutions where we have a server and a client. It would be really helpful if Microsoft Windows Defender has a server-client based model so that I can save some bandwidth when it downloads or uploads features. It will be helpful if we have a LAN-based or WAN-based controlling system."
"I would like Microsoft to have some kind of direct integration for USB controls. They have GPO and other controls to control the access of the USB drives on devices, but if there is something that can be directly implemented into the portal, it would be good. There should be a way to control via a cloud portal or something like that in a dynamic way. USB control for data exfiltration would be a good feature to implement. Currently, there are ways to do it, but it involves too many different things. You have to implement it via GPOs and other stuff, and then you move or copy those big files via Defender ATP. If there is a simple way of implementing those features, it would be great."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Currently, we have competitive pricing for Cylance, which is affordable enough to consider."
"CylancePROTECT is an affordable solution."
"The solution provides me with competitive pricing."
"Our licensing cost for the solution is around $4,000 for six months. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"I think that the price we are paying is good for what it is."
"The solution's pricing is around the same as most EDRs but slightly behind some of the major ones."
"The monthly fee is $55 USD per user."
"My company is on a yearly CylancePROTECT subscription. Price-wise, the solution is slightly expensive, so I'd rate it as eight out of ten."
"We are required to pay for the data we ingest, and increasing the data amount incurs additional expenses."
"The solution comes as a part of Windows 10 and it is covered under its license."
"Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs."
"The solution is free and comes with Windows."
"Currently, for us, Windows Defender is free with the purchase of Windows Server. Pricing is an important point for us when we are looking at the competitors of this solution. If we choose to go with another vendor, we will have to pay some license fees."
"Licensing fees are paid annually through a partner."
"It is an expensive solution. It would be nice if it could be included with the Microsoft Office package."
"It's all pretty easy. For some clients, it's an easier sell because it's just an add-on to their existing Microsoft licensing and Office 365 licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Blackberry Protect?
It is a good endpoint solution. It is very easy to manage and detect the threat immediately. It will take the necessary actions.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blackberry Protect?
The price is reasonable for us at the moment. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with Blackberry Protect?
I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we contact support, they tell us to update the latest agent, but we can't do that immedi...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
 

Also Known As

Blackberry Protect
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Panasonic, Noble Energy, Apria Healthcare Group Inc., Charles River Laboratories, Rovi Corporation, Toyota, Kiewit
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.