Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 2, 2022
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
11th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
184
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.5%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 12.2%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
Unique Categories:
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
1.8%
Cisco Security Portfolio
7.1%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
4.1%
Anti-Malware Tools
18.3%
 

Featured Reviews

JG
Jun 15, 2023
Streamlines security policy creation and saves a lot of time in identifying threats
The most valuable feature is being able to push a policy. Whenever we update a corporate policy, we update it in one place, push it down, and it updates the policy on every laptop. Secure Endpoint is good for creating actionable alerts so we can detect and remediate threats. If somebody does get infected, we don't have to wait for them to say, "Oh, I can't use my email." We immediately know about it. We would absolutely know about the problem before the person did. That was our biggest impact. Secure Endpoint decreased our time to remediation. Where it used to take us a month to find out that something is infected, we now know that same day, as soon it is infected. Cisco Secure Endpoint has helped improve our cybersecurity resilience. We only have about two IT guys. So it just makes them better at what they do. It saves them time, so they can focus on other things. It saves them time so they can focus on other tasks.
AR
Feb 17, 2022
Simple to install and maintain, but the support could be faster, and more responsive
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint gives us a second layer of security as well as the third layer of security. One of them is interested in web security and email security. One of them, similar to Cisco, is a Cisco FirePOWER. These are a compilation or a group of devices for security We had some…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Another of my favorite features is called the Device Trajectory, where it shows everything that's going on, on a computer. It shows the point in time when a virus is downloaded, so you can see if the user was surfing the internet or had a program open. It shows every running process and file access on the computer and saves it like a snapshot when it detects something malicious. It also has a File Trajectory, so you can even see if that file has been found on any of your other computers that have AMP."
"It's quite simple, and the advantage I see is that I get the trajectory of what happened inside the network, how a file has been transmitted to the workstation, and which files have got corrupted."
"I am really satisfied with the technical support."
"Device Trajectory is one of the most valuable features. We're able to dig in and really understand how things came to be and where to focus our efforts."
"The VPN is most valuable. It's the best thing in the market today. We can use two-factor authentication with another platform, and we can authenticate with two-factor."
"The solution is easy to deploy and applies multi-factor authentication."
"It is a very stable program."
"The most valuable feature at this moment is that Cisco AMP or Cisco Secure Endpoint solution is delivering a lot of things, and I always say to a lot of customers that if we didn't have Cisco AMP, we probably would have had ransomware somewhere. So, it's protecting us very well from a lot of hackers, malware, and especially ransomware."
"The most valuable feature is ransomware protection, which can detect malicious activity from IPs or a malicious payload in DLLs, or other things that can corrupt the system."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's most valuable feature is its ease of use."
"It is easy to install and use requiring little maintenance but applying updates."
"This product is flexible, and it is very easy to get updates from the Microsoft website."
"One of the main features is the solution is very light on resources and we do not have any problems with it."
"We have just started to implement it. It is useful for protection from malware and ransomware."
"It's an enterprise solution that provides a centralized console and it supports all the platforms that we use, including Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android."
"Microsoft Defender is always running. It is doing its job, so it is fine. I don't have any issues with the way it was implemented or how we are running it. We have been upgrading IT throughout the years, but there have been no issues."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would for it to have back up abilities. I would like the ability to go back to a point in time to when my PC was uninfected and to the moment of when the infection happened."
"The solution needs more in-depth analytics."
"It could be improved in connection with artificial intelligence and IoT."
"It does not include encryption and decryption of local file shares."
"An easier way to do deduplication of machines, or be alerted to the fact that there's more than one instance of a machine, would be useful... That way you could get a more accurate device count, so you're not having an inflated number."
"The initial setup is a bit complex because you need to execute existing antiviruses or security software that you have on your device."
"The Linux agent is a simple offline classic agent, and it doesn't support Secure Boot, which is important to have on a Linux machine. The Linux agent has conflicts with other solutions, including the Exploit Prevention system found in Windows servers. We didn't find a fix during troubleshooting, and Cisco couldn't offer one either. Eventually, we had to shut down the Exploit Prevention system. We didn't like that as we always want a solution that can fit smoothly into the setup without causing problems, especially where security is concerned. The tool also caused CPU spikes on our production machine, and we were seriously considering moving to another product."
"We have had some problems with updates not playing nice with our environment. This is important, because if there is a new version, we need to test it thoroughly before it goes into production. We cannot just say, "There's a new version. It's not going to give us any problems." With the complexity of the solution using multiple engines for multiple tasks, it can sometimes cause performance issues on our endpoints. Therefore, we need to test it before we deploy. That takes one to three days before we can be certain that the new version plays nice with our environment."
"There is a lot of information to take in, and the portals tend to change quickly due to the fast-paced nature of the industry."
"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."
"The onboarding and deployment could be more user-friendly, and there is room to grow in some of the reports. I don't want them to be oversimplified or overly complex, but there is room for improvement in the reporting it can do. It's relatively minor."
"In the next release, I would like to see better management reporting."
"If you have multi-cloud like Google and AWS, the native solutions are better for those particular cases."
"The scanning is slow when it is working with incoming emails."
"There is room to improve the security of the solution."
"The anti-ransomware features need to be improved upon."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a big issue."
"The solution is highly affordable; I believe we pay $2 or $3 per endpoint. It's significantly cheaper than the competitors on the market."
"Its price is fair for us."
"We can know if something bad is potentially happening instantaneously and prevent it from happening. We can go to a device and isolate it before it infects other devices. In our environment, that's millions of dollars saved in a matter of seconds."
"Cisco Secure Endpoint is not too expensive and it's not cheap. It's quite fair."
"The price is very fair to the customer."
"Whenever you are doing the licensing process, I would highly advise to look at what other Cisco solutions you have in your organization, then evaluate if an Enterprise Agreement is the best way to go. In our case, it was the best way to go. Since we had so many other Cisco products, we were able to tie those in. We were actually able to get several Cisco security solutions for less than if we had bought three or four Cisco security solutions independently or ad hoc."
"There is also the Cisco annual subscription plus my management time in terms of what I do with the Cisco product. I spend a minimal amount of time on it though, just rolling out updates as they need them and monitoring the console a couple of times a day to ensure nothing is out of control. Cost-wise, we are quite happy with it."
"Licensing models of Microsoft are renowned for being complex. We just purchased the whole E5 stack. With E5 licenses for users, we get access to a bunch of features that are not just related to security. I would rate them a three out of five in terms of pricing."
"It is free."
"We have been using the free version."
"The solution is free."
"The solution is free and comes with Windows."
"The price is fair for the features Microsoft delivers. If you want tailor-made features, you have to mix different licenses. It isn't straightforward."
"We have an enterprise agreement so from my perspective, this is a product that ships with Windows and it is not priced standalone."
"Everybody would like to see a lower price on everything. The Slovenian market is basically an SME market with clients having up to 100 seat licenses, comprising 90% of the company. They're very price sensitive. So, the price could be cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Learn More

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Interactive Demo

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
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.