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Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Malwarebytes Endpoint Prote...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
46th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 8.1%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint8.1%
Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection0.2%
Other91.7%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

KL
IT Consultant at Rigorsys Inc
Protects against zero-day threats and provides a quick overview of the status of all desktops
The platform's real-time protection works by blocking or quarantining threats when a user clicks on a link or opens an email deemed suspicious. I recommend it for those focused on zero-day threats. However, if you're looking for a one-size-fits-all solution, you may need more than one product. Overall, I rate it a nine out of ten.
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We focus on zero-day threats, and Malwarebytes helps minimize the risk."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its ability to bring together all the data, providing more information than just antivirus hits."
"It's great for investigating what's happening on a machine. They show a whole bunch of machine timeline events that are related to a security incident. They have quite good details on the things related to threat and vulnerability management, such as any weakness that has been disclosed publicly, assets that are exposed, and if there is an exploit active in the wild for that vulnerability. It can provide you with all such information, which is cool."
"We have just started to implement it. It is useful for protection from malware and ransomware."
"We are a Microsoft shop, and Defender is a Microsoft solution that provides some security at a reasonable cost."
"It captures data through machine learning, which is built-in on the back-end. It also provides built-in analytics and a threat intelligence feature. It is a one-stop solution that doesn't require an antivirus because it comes prebuilt into Windows 10."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a comprehensive and scalable solution for protecting on-premises and hybrid infrastructure."
"The technical support from Microsoft is very good. We are part of the Microsoft Suite, and from being part of this we have consistent news regarding Microsoft Defender for Endpoint."
"Defender is stable. The performance is good."
 

Cons

"The product's reporting functionality could be improved. Additionally, there could be enough documentation available."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can improve by making the reporting faster. It takes some time to reflect back to the administration portal of what has been updated. For example, out of 100 Computers, approximately 90 computers received updates, but when you check the administration portal over one or two days, you will only see 75, even though 90 were updated."
"The deployment of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Windows 10 is not quite so straightforward. This could be made easier."
"I would like to see improvements made to how it secures activities on web pages."
"I am not sure if I will be using this product in the future because of the price."
"It's not easy to create special allowances for certain groups of users. It can be a little heavy-handed in some areas where Microsoft has decided to lock a feature out, meaning they make it hard to make an exception... One company we work with needed to use about 20 different thumb drives for about 20 users. To make that exception for them was very difficult. In fact, you can't really make an exception. But what you can do is allow them to use it and, while it will still alert, you can actually suppress those alerts."
"I personally haven't experienced any pain points, but some of my coworkers feel that it isn't secure enough."
"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."
"Auto recovery is the most important feature that we would need from this solution. For decryption, similar to Malwarebytes, there should be something to be able to recover the data up to the last normal status. Its ability to recover data to the last normal copy must not exceed 5 to 10 minutes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product pricing is fair. They may negotiate if you contact them directly; otherwise, you'll pay the standard premium."
"You don't need to worry about the renewal and purchase of antivirus products. It is bundled with Windows 10, so you don't need to worry about separately purchasing any antiviruses."
"I do not have to purchase antivirus solutions anymore because Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is integrated into Windows and comes free."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an expensive solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"The product is free of charge and comes integrated into Windows."
"You just pay Windows 10 prices, then you have antivirus software. As a price comparison, Defender's costs are very low."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can be costly as a standalone solution."
"AV solutions are pretty expensive because they are necessary, not just for protection, but many businesses need them to comply with regulatory bodies and receive accreditation. We recently purchased an E5 license, which gives us access to the entire Microsoft suite. I would say the pricing is competitive; most tools of this kind are similarly priced. There are minor differences between the competitors, but they aren't spectacularly different. Defender for Endpoint makes sense because all our solutions are in the same place, paid for with a single license. The subscription price is around £50 per user per month, though it may have increased slightly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection?
The product pricing is fair. They may negotiate if you contact them directly; otherwise, you'll pay the standard premium.
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection?
The product's reporting functionality could be improved. Additionally, there could be enough documentation available.
What is your primary use case for Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection?
I primarily use the product to filter user actions. When a user opens a link, it catches patterns based on malware rather than protection codes. It analyzes these patterns and blocks the user from ...
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

No data available
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
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