Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Aug 28, 2022

We performed a comparison between Check Point Harmony Endpoint 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.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both solutions agree that their initial setup is straightforward.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their security, stability, and scalability.

    Check Point Harmony users say it is robust, reliable, and has a useful and intuitive single dashboard. Several users mention that its alerting features need improvement.

    Defender for Endpoint users like its automated “Investigation and Response” feature and say it provides good vulnerability assessment. Some Defender for Endpoint users note that its UI needs enhancement.
  • Pricing: Most users of both solutions feel that they are expensive products. Defender for Endpoint does offer a free version.
  • ROI: Reviewers of both solutions report seeing an ROI.
  • Service and Support: Most users of both solutions report being satisfied with the level of support they receive.

Comparison Results: Check Point Harmony has a slight edge in this comparison. According to its reviewers, its interface is friendlier than that of Defender for Endpoint.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Report (Updated: September 2023).
735,432 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Fortinet FortiEDR's firewalling, rule creation, monitoring, and inspection profiles are great.""Fortinet is very user-friendly for customers.""This is stable and scalable.""The solution was relatively easy to deploy.""The main thing is that I feel safe. Because the processes that have been used to get a handle on the attackers are much better than other competitors""Forensics is a valuable feature of Fortinet FortiEDR.""Fortinet FortiEDR made our clients feel secure and more at ease, knowing that they had an EDR solution that would close the gap in their security posture.""I like FortiClient EMS. FortiEDR has a lot of great features like lockdown mode, remote wipes, and encryption. I can set malware outbreak policies and controls for detecting abnormalities. You can also simulate phishing attacks."

More Fortinet FortiEDR Pros →

"This software incorporates security AI features and effectively manages bandwidth with its DRS capabilities.""The reporting feature where we can see and monitor what happened on our client computers is useful.""It's a scalable product as it is a cloud offering.""The most valuable feature of Check Point Harmony Endpoint is centralized management.""The most important characteristic of our requirements was the implementation of disk encryption.""It has improved the detection of malware.""It is minimally invasive. From a single installer, the equipment is protected and secured.""One of the coolest features is that it provides an HTML report on the laptop and the endpoint console for the administrator."

More Check Point Harmony Endpoint Pros →

"Coming from an organization where the EDR wasn't strong, it has always been a case of basically searching through the information you already have and looking for something. It was basically trying to find the needle in a haystack. What the Defender platform does is that it reduces the size of the haystack, and it'll say that the needle is over here. Minutes matter, and it certainly zeros you in on the events that are concerning. It also simplifies the effort of trying to get some kind of correlation of behaviors or actions you see in the environment and confirming if something is benign or a threat.""Defender for Endpoint provides good visibility into threats and has favorable threat intelligence.""Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable. Currently, we have 600,000 users in our organization.""In terms of the installation, ease of use, and user interface, Defender has been great so far.""Defender for Endpoint is a robust solution that works well out-of-the-box.""Defender provides useful alerts and groups them. It sends an alert to your portal if it detects any malicious activity, and you can group multiple alerts to form an incident.""The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it is embedded into the Windows system. Additionally, the performance is good and simple to maintain.""Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a robust platform."

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pros →

Cons
"FortiEDR can be improved by providing more detailed reporting.""The support needs improvement.""I would like the solution to extend beyond endpoint protection and include other attack surfaces such as other network components.""The solution is not stable.""We find the solution to be a bit expensive.""The only minor concern is occasional interference with desired programs.""Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later.""To improve Fortinet, we need to see more features and technology areas at the endpoint level introduced."

More Fortinet FortiEDR Cons →

"It would be ideal if they had a migration tool of some sort.""Legacy VPNs and digital footprints should be minimized.""We did have some early compatibility issues, which I hope Check Point has since resolved.""I would like to see them add features where we can use this license for mobile browsers, too.""Compared to other brands, we would like a dedicated anti-spam to be included in order to close the full circle.""They should also add new functions such as threat hunting.""The next release should consider a strong threat detection mechanism that can categorize various levels of attacks for faster analysis.""I would like to see is this same solution being able to link with the services of different corporate networks as if they were a remote access VPN extension and thus not require additional licenses."

More Check Point Harmony Endpoint Cons →

"The detection of viruses could be a little bit better.""Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by making the reporting better.""Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could provide us with a more holistic approach, such as collaboration. They can provide us with an environment from where we can manage all the endpoints from one central location, such as overall management.""Microsoft Defender for Endpoint does not offer default templates for alerts, requiring us to configure everything ourselves to avoid numerous false positives.""Sometimes, there are different skews. In a basic skew, they should have basic log analysis without the need to integrate with any third-party or SIEM solutions, like Sentinel. This would make it so much easier for users who don't have log collection or log analysis.""Microsoft Defender could be improved with features more like the McAfee ePO. It would be better if I had a console to get all the information for my endpoints. Maybe this is too much for it, but it would be better if it could handle those non-signature-based malicious codes or viruses.""Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by providing more user-friendly dashboards. They may be complicated for some.""The time it takes to restore the application could be improved. It has a lot of dependencies. It's not like the Microsoft security that comes with the OS. Updating through the command prompt, most of the time, it takes some time to download some of these dependencies."

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The price is comprable to other endpoint security solutions."
  • "The pricing is typical for enterprises and fairly priced."
  • "I'm not familiar with pricing, but it looks a bit costly compared to other vendors I think."
  • "The pricing is good."
  • "I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
  • "The hardware costs about €100,000 and about €20,000 annually for access."
  • "Fortinet FortiEDR has a yearly subscription."
  • "It's not cheap, but it's not expensive either."
  • More Fortinet FortiEDR Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We implement this solution with a yearly subscription and there are no extra costs."
  • "The price of Check Point Harmony Endpoint is comparable to SonicWall. The price could be a bit lower."
  • "Check Point Harmony Endpoint's pricing is more competitive than any other vendor."
  • "I rate Check Point Harmony Endpoint's pricing a seven out of ten because it is a little high."
  • More Check Point Harmony Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I don't know the standalone costs. It is my understanding that the M365 E5 is $56 a month or something close to that pricing. That would be for the full suite. Just Defender might be $8 a month. I can't say for sure."
  • "The solution comes free with Microsoft Windows 10."
  • "When customers haven't deployed the solution and don't have licenses, it can be expensive to start from scratch."
  • "I do not have to purchase antivirus solutions anymore because Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is integrated into Windows and comes free."
  • "It came with Windows."
  • "We pay a yearly license for Microsoft Defender. We also have a support contract with them."
  • "The solution is free with Windows."
  • "You do not need to pay any additional costs for antivirus and anti-malware solutions for endpoint protection."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:I suggest Fortinet’s FortiEDR over FortiClient for several reasons. For starters, FortiEDR guarantees solid protection… more »
    Top Answer:Fortinet FortiEDR made our clients feel secure and more at ease, knowing that they had an EDR solution that would close… more »
    Top Answer:The price is on the higher side. It's in the upper quadrant. The hardware costs about €100,000 and about €20,000… more »
    Top Answer:This software incorporates security AI features and effectively manages bandwidth with its DRS capabilities.
    Top Answer:Check Point Harmony Endpoint's pricing is more competitive than any other vendor. Since it is growing, the solution… more »
    Top Answer:Perhaps the software could be made more resource-efficient. While many improvements come to mind, I don't have them… more »
    Top Answer:Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface… more »
    Top Answer:We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior… more »
    Top Answer:The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    enSilo, FortiEDR
    Check Point Endpoint Security, Endpoint Security, Check Point SandBlast Agent
    Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiEDR is a real-time endpoint protection, detection, and automated response solution. Its primary purpose is to detect advanced threats to stop breaches and ransomware damage. It is designed to do so in real time, even on an already compromised device, allowing you to respond and remediate incidents automatically so your data can remain protected.

    Fortinet FortiEDR Features

    Fortinet FortiEDR has many valuable key features, including:

    • Easily customizable
    • Real-time proactive risk mitigation & IoT security
    • Pre-infection protection
    • Post-infection protection
    • Track applications and ratings
    • Reduce the attack surface with risk-based proactive policies
    • Achieve analysis of entire log history
    • Optional managed detection and response (MDR) service

    Fortinet FortiEDR Benefits

    Some of the key benefits of using Fortinet FortiEDR include:

    • Protection: Fortinet FortiEDR provides proactive, real-time, automated endpoint protection with the orchestrated incident response across platforms. It stops the breach with real-time postinfection blocking to protect data from exfiltration and ransomware encryption.

    • Single unified console: Fortinet FortiEDR has a single unified console with an intuitive interface, which makes management easier. The solution automates mundane endpoint security tasks so your employees don’t need to do it.

    • Cost savings: With Fortinet FortiEDR you can eliminate post-breach operational expenses and breach damage costs.

    • Flexibility: Fortinet FortiEDR can be deployed on premises or on a secure cloud instance. With Fortinet FortiEDR, endpoints are protected both on- and off-line.

    • Scalability: Because Fortinet can be deployed quickly and has a small footprint, it is easy to scale up to protect hundreds of thousand endpoints.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Fortinet FortiEDR users.

    An Owner at a security firm says, "The features that I have found most valuable are the ability to customize it and to reduce its size. It lets you run in a very small window in terms of memory and resources on legacy cash registers. The customer has literally about 800 cash registers. That was the use case for Fortinet FortiEDR - to get that down into a tiny space. The only way to do that was to use this product because it had that ability to unbundle services that were a surplus.”

    Chandan M., Chief Technical Officer at Provision Technologies LLP, mentions, “The ease of deployment and configuration is valuable. It's very easy compared to other vendors like Sophos. Sophos' configuration is complex. Fortinet is a lot easier to understand. You don't need a lot of admin knowledge to do the configuration.” He also adds, “The security is also very good and the firewall response is good.”

    Harpreet S., Information Technology Support Specialist at Chemtrade Logistics, explains, "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."

    DeAndre V., Senior Network Administrator at a financial services firm, states, “The dashboard is easy to follow and use. The deployment and uninstalling were easy. I like the detailed information about the path of a file that might be suspicious. Being able to check that out was easy to follow. Exceptions are easy to create and the interface is easy to follow with a nice appearance.

    Check Point Harmony Endpoint is a robust security solution that enables users to use a single piece of software to accomplish tasks that often require the use of multiple pieces of software. It prevents impending threats from doing harm while at the same time enabling users to identify and deal with any harm that results from breaches. 

    Check Point Harmony Endpoint provides users with an excellent total cost of ownership. It combines six security solutions into a single powerful solution. Instead of being unwieldy, it is, in fact, a highly flexible solution. Users can easily manage and deploy it on site in their offices or via the cloud according to their needs. It upgrades effortlessly without ever causing disruptions to the work users are doing. The end result is a high return on a user’s investment.

    Benefits of Check Point Harmony Endpoint

    Some of the benefits of using Check Point Harmony Endpoint include: 

    • The ability to completely protect endpoints from all manner of immediate digital threats. Check Point Harmony Endpoint stops both malware and phishing sites from harming your networks. All files you receive or download are either run through Check Point Harmony Endpoint’s Threat Emulation sandbox, which scans it for malware, or sterilized by a Threat Extraction process. These prevent malware from ever entering your system. It also prevents phishing sites from stealing credentials. The software scans the sites and, if they are found to be malicious, they are locked out of the system. All of this occurs in real time. 
    • The ability to quickly recover from any attack which manages to do damage to your system. Check Point Harmony Endpoint’s automation responds to a threat once it is detected. Any device that is infected is automatically quarantined from the rest of the network and disinfected. This prevents further infection and allows administrators to render the machine safe for use. It also automatically creates reports which break down the nature of the attack and all other relevant details. These reports give users the information that they need to conduct triage and repair the damage done by an attack.

    Check Point Harmony Endpoint offers users a piece of security software which is completely cutting-edge. It stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are the raw power of the solution and the usefulness of Check Point Harmony Endpoint’s built-in automation. Check Point Harmony Endpoint has a high ceiling when it comes to dealing with threats. Users are given the ability to decide how aggressively they want to employ it, which creates a great deal of flexibility. Check Point Harmony Endpoint’s automation is constantly running in the background of the program. It creates reports that empower users to take appropriate steps to protect their systems.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Sumit B., a consultant at Cognizant, notes the usefulness of Check Point Harmony Endpoint’s built-in automation. He writes, “SandBlast Agent is always working in the background collecting sensitive data, forensics, and notifying users whenever there is a chance of a brute-force attack into our systems. Otherwise, it has been protecting our data at various geographies along with the endpoints that we set up on the cloud. They have been able to filter out or thwart any attacks from the very word, "Go," and make our work very safe and smooth.”

    A PeerSpot user who serves as a Network Technical Specialist at a manufacturing company adds that “It's pretty complete for preventing threats to endpoints. Its capabilities are great.”

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for organizations. It offers real-time protection against various types of cyber threats, including malware, viruses, ransomware, and phishing attacks.

    With its powerful machine-learning capabilities, it can detect and block sophisticated attacks before they can cause any harm. The solution also includes endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities, allowing organizations to quickly investigate and respond to security incidents. It provides detailed insights into the attack timeline, enabling security teams to understand the scope and impact of an incident.

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint also offers proactive threat hunting, allowing organizations to proactively search for and identify potential threats within their network. It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft security solutions, such as Microsoft 365 Defender, to provide a unified and holistic security approach. With its centralized management console, organizations can easily deploy, configure, and monitor the security solution across their entire network.

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a robust and scalable security solution that helps organizations protect their endpoints and data from evolving cyber threats.
    Offer
    Learn more about Fortinet FortiEDR
    Learn more about Check Point Harmony Endpoint
    Learn more about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    Sample Customers
    Financial, Healthcare, Legal, Technology, Enterprise, Manufacturing ... 
    Boston Properties, Independence Care System, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), Courtagen Life Sciences, Carmel Partners
    Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm24%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Media Company6%
    Educational Organization6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Healthcare Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Government8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Energy/Utilities Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Government8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise41%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise50%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business43%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise39%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise49%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise47%
    Buyer's Guide
    Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    735,432 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Check Point Harmony Endpoint is ranked 7th in EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) with 46 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) with 96 reviews. Check Point Harmony Endpoint is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Check Point Harmony Endpoint writes "Resilient by design, provides redundancy, and offers ongoing constant improvements". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "You can access all your security data and telemetry from a single pane of glass". Check Point Harmony Endpoint is most compared with SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business and Symantec Endpoint Security, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Intercept X Endpoint, Symantec Endpoint Security, CrowdStrike Falcon and SentinelOne Singularity Complete. See our Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.

    See our list of best EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) vendors and best EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) vendors.

    We monitor all EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) 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.