We performed a comparison between ESET Endpoint Security 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.
Comparison Results: ESET Endpoint Security ultimately won out in this comparison. Our reviewers agree that ESET Endpoint Security is easy to install and easy to use. In addition, it has excellent customer support.
"The price is low and quite competitive with others."
"The console is easy to read. I also like the scanning part and the ability to move assets from one to the other."
"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."
"Exceptions are easy to create and the interface is easy to follow with a nice appearance."
"This is stable and scalable."
"The product detects and blocks threats and is more proactive than firewalls."
"Fortinet FortiEDR's scalability is quite good, and you can add licenses to the solution."
"It is a scalable solution...The initial setup of Fortinet FortiEDR was straightforward."
"It is pretty easy to deploy. Its update definition file is small, so it can dispatch very quickly within the enterprise. The product itself is very lightweight, so it won't delay your endpoint. You also don't have to do any difficult configuration because it comes with a very good default setting. So, you just install it and forget it."
"This solution blocks the brand new malware threats."
"ESET has regular updates, and it gives me good feedback. It's not too onerous like some of the products I've used in the past."
"The solution offers impressive advanced protection."
"The tool offers great detection. You need time only to setup the environment. After that, it is just plug-and-play to get the solution up and running. We can also control the PC remotely from the cloud and get all the information in one place."
"I like the integration; it lets you see the product installed on a particular computer."
"The most valuable feature of ESET Endpoint Security is that it is light on resources. It has a very low impact on the system. It uses low memory and the setup size is very low."
"The pricing is good."
"Defender for Endpoint is a robust solution that works well out-of-the-box."
"Defender's analytics are much better than CrowdStrike's."
"It's one of the best antiviruses on the market."
"The best thing I like about it is its interaction with the other Defender products. It provides the ability to push telemetry up. It gives me endpoint visibility and allows me to take automated actions."
"The patch updates and version updates are very good. Those happen on an automated basis whenever I'm connecting to the organization network, either through LAN or through the VPN."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are the ease of use and it was available within the operating system."
"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."
"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..."
"The only minor concern is occasional interference with desired programs."
"The support needs improvement."
"The dashboard isn't easy to access and manage."
"The amount of usage, the number of details we get, or the number of options that can be tweaked is limited in comparison to that with other EDR solutions"
"The solution is not stable."
"We find the solution to be a bit expensive."
"I think cloud security and SASE are areas of concern in the product where improvements are required. The tool's cloud version has to be improved in terms of the security it offers."
"The SIEM could be improved."
"The use of SQL Server can be improved. At times, there is a bit of challenge while linking it with the Javascript. ESET Endpoint Security requires modern technology or modern equipment on site. You will find it difficult to use ESET Endpoint Security with dual-core machines. If they can add the cloud management feature to their product, it will be much easier. If you look at this COVID situation that we are in right now, people are working from home, so you need to control the computers wherever you are. For example, if you are using any email setup and you are hosting it on your own, all the email traffic will be going through the same network. You need to protect all of your computers from the attack. It is best if you can do it remotely rather than having an IT person to come onsite to manage all computers and metrics etc, which isn't a smart way to do it."
"iOS compatibility for mobile security and parental control."
"They should have better support for different languages and auto-upgrading."
"They recently released an EDR integration. I hope they have more AI or intelligence filtering on the EDR events. Even though it has already got AI, but it is quite a different thing. So, they still have room to improve on the EDR part. This is one small piece that they need to improve. Otherwise, it is just fine."
"They can improve ransomware protection, and there should be cloud sandboxing for Mac."
"The product could have better integration with third-party products that would help extend functionality."
"It seems to have some issues with updates. When you do updates, it sometimes requests for a reboot, and even when you do the reboot, it still says that you need to reboot. Currently, on my computer, it says that a new ESET Endpoint Antivirus has been installed, and I need to restart the computer for the changes to take effect, but I've already done that, and the same message is still there, which is a little annoying. It should have a feature similar to the Intercept X feature in Sophos."
"The solution can improve the modules, and it is lacking centralized management and visibility of the endpoints."
"Its price could be better."
"The time to generate certain alerts on our dashboard can take between 45 minutes to an hour, and I am unsure of the factors that influence this duration."
"The user interface could use some improvement."
"The management console is something that can be improved."
"On the Mac OS platform, there is no parity between Windows and Mac OS. The solution is very feature-rich and very well-integrated into Windows, and I guess baked into Windows 10 and Windows 11. Whereas, on the Mac OS platform, there is still some work there to give it a more feature-reach platform."
"Additional security would be beneficial."
"We need better support to learn about the product. Documentation is available, but we need some kind of training program so that we can get a better understanding of the product."
"They're in the process of pulling more things together. They can continue with the integrations and provide a better way of seeing the impact of security changes, especially on the endpoint side. Before we actually flip the switch, we should be able to see the impact of security changes on the business or business applications. It would prevent breaking any business applications."
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ESET Endpoint Protection Platform is ranked 9th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 96 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. ESET Endpoint Protection Platform is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of ESET Endpoint Protection Platform writes "Easy to set up with good security and rapidly improving capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "Eliminates the need to look at multiple dashboards by automatically providing one XDR dashboard to show the security score of each subscription". ESET Endpoint Protection Platform is most compared with Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, Check Point Harmony Endpoint and Fortinet FortiClient, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete and Fortinet FortiClient. See our ESET Endpoint Protection Platform vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
See our list of best Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) vendors, best Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) vendors, and best Anti-Malware Tools vendors.
We monitor all Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) 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.