Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Secure Endpoint vs CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint enhances productivity and reduces costs by streamlining threat detection, integrating tools, and minimizing manual intervention.
Sentiment score
7.4
CrowdStrike Falcon enhances productivity and security, reducing costs and downtime while efficiently managing threats with rapid deployment and detection.
Sentiment score
7.3
Organizations achieve financial gains and efficiency by using Microsoft Defender, eliminating third-party solutions, and enhancing security management.
CrowdStrike Falcon saves time and offers good value for money, especially for enterprise companies, because it can stop breaches.
Without detection and protection measures, organizations would face substantial payments and reputational damage, including the necessity to inform customers about data breaches, potentially leading to loss of business.
We have seen a return on investment when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it saves labor by reducing the need for staff to focus on it.
The biggest return on investment for me when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the time saving.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Cisco Secure Endpoint support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, providing quick issue resolution and valuable user guidance.
Sentiment score
7.0
CrowdStrike Falcon support is valued for responsiveness and expertise, though growth causes delays; premium support is highly rated.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft's Defender for Endpoint support is generally effective but experiences vary; premium options offer swift, knowledgeable assistance.
Cisco has good technical support, especially considering these are newer solutions compared to traditional routing and switching products.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as a 10 because they resolve many issues for us.
The CrowdStrike team is very efficient; I would rate them ten out of ten.
They could improve by initiating calls for high-priority cases instead of just opening tickets.
The level-one support seems disconnected from subject matter experts.
I rate Microsoft support 10 out of 10.
Due to our size, we don't have access to direct technical support, but the knowledge base, Microsoft Learn, and the articles available are really good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint is scalable, integrates with SecureX for efficient management, and supports diverse industries without extra resources.
Sentiment score
7.9
CrowdStrike Falcon's scalability and adaptability make it ideal for diverse platforms, though costs may limit expansive deployments.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint efficiently scales with diverse enterprises, integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, supporting growth effectively.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is definitely scalable.
It has adequate coverage and is easy to deploy.
In terms of scalability, I find CrowdStrike to be stable, and I have not encountered any limitations with it.
There's no scalability limitation from CrowdStrike itself, as it just requires agent deployment.
We managed to scale it out in a short amount of time, with two months of planning and three months of implementation on 10,000 computers.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable enough to handle various devices across environments, whether they are laptops, Android devices, or operating in hybrid environments.
Compatibility is its main feature.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco Secure Endpoint is highly stable, reliable, and trusted for performance, earning high ratings from users in various enterprises.
Sentiment score
8.1
CrowdStrike Falcon is highly regarded for its stability, efficiency, and reliability, with minor update issues quickly resolved.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is praised for stability, efficiency, and low resource impact, despite minor occasional bugs.
We have not encountered any problems.
I have never seen instability in the CrowdStrike tool.
We are following N-1 versions across our environment, which is stable.
The biggest issue occurred when every computer worldwide experienced a blue screen.
I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft.
I rate Defender 10 out of 10 for stability.
Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint requires better integration, reporting, and UI enhancements, alongside improved pricing, AI capabilities, and IoT support.
CrowdStrike Falcon needs system integration, better reporting, reduced false positives, enhanced support, advanced features, and flexible pricing.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint struggles with support, integration, UI, performance issues, and lacks essential features and platform support.
The forensic capabilities need enhancement, especially for deep forensic data collection.
Simplifying the querying process, such as using double quote queries or directly obtaining logs based on IP addresses or usernames, would be beneficial.
Another concern is CrowdStrike's GUI. It changes annually, making it hard to work and find options.
Threat prevention should be their first priority.
Repeated interactions are necessary due to Level One's lack of tools and knowledge, hindering efficient problem-solving and negatively impacting our experience with Microsoft support.
We use Microsoft partners to help govern the platform, and as part of an alliance, we want to gather data from each tenant and combine them for a complete view.
Providing more detailed information on how Microsoft Defender for Endpoint detects vulnerabilities.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers competitive and flexible pricing with value-rich features, despite some complexity in licensing.
CrowdStrike Falcon's pricing ranges from $30-$100 per user annually, ideal for large enterprises but costly for smaller businesses.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers cost-effective, flexible pricing options integrated with Microsoft services, including discounts for education and volume.
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
It is expensive compared to SentinelOne, but as the market leader, it is worth it.
The licensing cost and setup costs are affordable.
The solution is a bit expensive.
Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs.
It costs $15 per VM for the P2 plan, which is seen as affordable for customers.
The pricing, setup, and licensing were very easy and simple.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides advanced security features, cross-platform support, and ease of use with strong threat intelligence and support.
CrowdStrike Falcon provides robust threat intelligence, AI-driven detection, and seamless integration with minimal system impact and intuitive interface.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers seamless integration, real-time protection, and automated response, ensuring robust security with minimal impact.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet.
I can investigate by accessing the customer's host based on the RTR environment and utilize host search to know details for the past seven days, including logins, processes, file installations, malicious processes, and network connections.
The real-time analytics aspect of CrowdStrike performs well because we get all logs in real-time, with no delay, allowing us to take action immediately.
Being an EDR solution, it helps us identify attacks in real-time.
Defender for Endpoint's coverage across different platforms in our environment is pretty good. We have devices running Linux, Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and Android. It covers all of them.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides a unified management interface allowing customers to manage their on-premises and hybrid infrastructures from a single pane.
One of the best features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its database for identifying zero-day attacks or malware attacks.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon is 10.6%, up from 9.6% 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

Ahmed-Dawood - PeerSpot reviewer
A tool that offers good performance and technical support along with great protection to endpoint devices
The vendor from Cisco takes care of the maintenance. We need three people to take care of the tool in case of crashes. From the dashboard, we come to know about everything related to the endpoint. You can take action unless it is not the physical hardware to which something wrong has happened, especially if something wrong happens to the operating system. I would definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it. To provide endpoint protection, I feel the product should be speedy enough to detect malicious programs and trojans. There are a lot of tools that are not acting as signature-based but as behavior-based antivirus. Cisco Secure Endpoint is required, especially if the customers don't have a sandbox. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.
Waleed Omar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides effective real-time threat detection with potential for cost optimization
Some features such as device control, firewall management, and file analysis are standalone products that we need to purchase separately. If these features came out of the box within the product, it would be much more beneficial for us. Other providers such as SentinelOne include these features in their base product. We attended a CrowdStrike Falcon event where they discussed some shallow AI features, but we cannot see these in our panel yet. We work with different solutions such as Darktrace and SocRadar, where AI features are automatically displayed in our dashboards after release. However, for CrowdStrike Falcon, we cannot see these features.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are best for your needs.
862,514 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Endpoint?
The product's initial setup phase was very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdS...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco Secure Endpoint lacks features like DLP which other vendors offer. XDR is new, so integration capabilities with...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing u...
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 pu...
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,...
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 sol...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint?
The most valuable aspect lies in its automation capabilities, particularly within security automation.
 

Also Known As

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
CrowdStrike Falcon, CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike Identity Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Surface
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank
Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne and others in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP). Updated: July 2025.
862,514 professionals have used our research since 2012.