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ESET PROTECT Enterprise vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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
8.5
ESET PROTECT Enterprise offers excellent ROI with strong security, cost-effectiveness, and user satisfaction prompting switches from competitors.
Sentiment score
7.3
Organizations achieve financial gains and efficiency by using Microsoft Defender, eliminating third-party solutions, and enhancing security management.
The return on investment is excellent due to its functionality and ease of installation.
There was money saving from using ESET PROTECT Enterprise, which is why I switched from CrowdStrike to ESET.
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
8.7
ESET PROTECT Enterprise's customer support is praised for being responsive, knowledgeable, and effective, despite occasional redirection to resellers.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft's Defender for Endpoint support is generally effective but experiences vary; premium options offer swift, knowledgeable assistance.
The tech support from ESET is amazing, and I would rate it as ten out of ten.
They are very responsive and help in solving issues quickly.
Even if support is addressing my problem, if the two issues I mentioned are not resolved, then the support process is not complete.
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
8.1
ESET PROTECT Enterprise offers robust scalability, easily expanding licenses for large deployments, though server-level enhancements may benefit.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint efficiently scales with diverse enterprises, integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, supporting growth effectively.
It can efficiently scale up to thousands of devices in an organization without issues.
I have used many products before, and this solution is definitely scalable.
It is better suited for workstations rather than server environments.
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
7.8
ESET PROTECT Enterprise is stable but occasionally disrupts work with update-related restarts; users seek improved notifications.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is praised for stability, efficiency, and low resource impact, despite minor occasional bugs.
When it performs an update, ESET PROTECT Enterprise should request permission for restarting because otherwise, users lose their work.
The solution is stable, and I have not encountered any glitches.
The solution is very, very stable.
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

ESET PROTECT Enterprise requires improved remote deployment, performance, automation, flexibility, documentation, and affordability to enhance user experience.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint struggles with support, integration, UI, performance issues, and lacks essential features and platform support.
Sometimes, agents lose connection with the management console, and the administration team needs to reinstall the agents on the computers.
They need to reduce the number of notifications on the endpoints.
It takes a lot of processing power when the machine is initially booted.
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

ESET PROTECT Enterprise users consider pricing reasonable, competitive, and offering good value despite occasional price increases.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers cost-effective, flexible pricing options integrated with Microsoft services, including discounts for education and volume.
I pay 40 dollars per agent annually, which is cheaper than 60 dollars per agent for Check Point.
We recently paid fourteen dollars and thirty-six cents per unit for 20 users, which is reasonable.
Comparing it to other solutions in the market, it was slightly higher.
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

ESET PROTECT Enterprise provides robust network monitoring, efficient management, automated tasks, reliable EDR, and secure, low-resource antivirus protection.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers seamless integration, real-time protection, and automated response, ensuring robust security with minimal impact.
It allows simple whitelisting and has a learning mode for new installations, which reduces false positives by adapting to typical user habits.
Its web component prevents infections from malicious websites, which enhances its anti-malware capabilities.
One of the strong features of ESET PROTECT Enterprise is its ability to work well on old computers.
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.
 

Categories and Ranking

ESET PROTECT Enterprise
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (20th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of ESET PROTECT Enterprise is 1.8%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 16.0%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Cees Van Den Haak - PeerSpot reviewer
A reliable solution that offers enterprise protection
Our primary use case involves approximately 180 workstations, 180 laptops, and office protection in our environment ESET PROTECT Enterprise is reliable.  The tool is complex and expensive.  I have been using the product for 10 years.  The tool is stable.  The product is scalable. My company…
Sudhen Swami - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to update with good protection and a useful cloud portal
We've mainly used it for endpoints. However, we've also used it for DLP as well. We're also in the process of implementing it for cloud and identity as well. However, it's very good for endpoints, and that's our main focus. The malware protection is good. The visibility it provides is very useful. We can combine visibility with wider security features and alerts around malware, misconfiguration, or any other kinds of threats. The cloud portal is quite good. From there, we are able to see alerts and have colleagues review issues and monitor to see if any patterns arise. It's serving us quite well overall. It allows us to look at other items, like application and browser control. It helps us prioritize threats. We have a process in place now where we can review issues and remediate them effectively. We have been able to integrate a variety of Microsoft security products together. We use Azure AD, for example, and we've begun to implement DLP, among other items. We're looking at labeling and tagging and will expand into that soon. Defender has more stringent system requirements than, for example, Check Point. So when we implemented the Check Point Endpoint agent, that solution didn't mind what version of Windows you were using. When we moved to Defender, Defender had certain system prerequisites that had to be met. So we had to make sure that we're on a minimum version of Windows when we're utilizing Office, and Office has to be a particular version as well. It has more stringent system requirements that have to be met before you can implement it. It works natively together with other Microsoft solutions. Once you get more and more of those different components across the environment, then you start to get better visibility. So, rather than having lots of different solutions, you have fewer solutions and a single vendor solution. That way, you start getting into a position where you get better visibility and integration as well. The standardization is good. It's important. It's helping me with monitoring and learning. Updates and upgrades are quite smooth and seamless. Defender helps us automate routine tasks. Quite a lot of Microsoft is straightforward for us now. Previously, we didn't have enough resources and were unable to look at the alerts. Having this in place makes things a lot more straightforward for us. We have both the technology and the people in place now, alongside the process. We do see the benefits in that, and that's why we're continuing our adoption across the estate in terms of client and server as well. It's helping us avoid looking at multiple dashboards and centralized monitoring. We're not fully there yet. We're getting there. While we haven't witnessed time saving yet, once it's fully deployed, it will. By then, we'll have standardized processes across a single solution. We have saved money, however, as we continue to reduce non-Mircosft systems. Since we won't be using various competing technologies, we can save on licensing costs. We've likely so far saved 15%. While it's hard to estimate exactly how much, the solution has helped us decrease time to detection and time to respond.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ESET Protect?
The product enabled Zero-Day Protection for our environment. We never encountered any issues regarding threats.
What needs improvement with ESET Protect?
ESET PROTECT Enterprise makes the system a little slow sometimes and updates occur at startup. Sometimes unwanted pop-ups appear to users, and they are unable to disable them. The user-friendliness...
What is your primary use case for ESET Protect?
I work with another ESET solution called EDR and XDR. I am working with ESET PROTECT Enterprise and ESET Endpoint Security. I am using ESET Secure Authentication, also called ESET EDR and XDR Enter...
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

ESET Protect, ESET File Security
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about ESET PROTECT Enterprise vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,874 professionals have used our research since 2012.