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Malwarebytes Teams vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 4, 2025

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 Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Malwarebytes Teams is 2.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 10.1%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Anas Anas - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective threat predictions, simple to deploy, and light on resources
Malwarebytes's initial setup is simple. It is easy to deploy and configure the policies and the configuration. I deployed Malwarebytes for one customer and I did it in under two days. They had approximately 50 users, it took approximately an hour. The steps I took for the implementation were downloading the Malwarebytes management console from the site, installing it, then running the discovery tool, scanning my network, and checking all of the PCs on my network. It's already pre-configured, you don't need to configure anything. The only configuration that I did on the administration console was some of the exclusion from the scan. This is the only rule that I have created. I rate the initial setup of Malwarebytes a ten out of ten.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Ten times a day, improved signatures will be downloaded, so it is very up-to-date in terms of malware experience."
"The technical support services are good."
"I never have to look at it or do anything with it, and then my system just stays clean."
"The endpoint protection and response that allows us to restore a machine back to a pre-infected state are the most valuable features."
"The dashboard actually is good and it is simple."
"The solution has a good management interface."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that I can use it wherever I want, be it at the office, at home, or even outside."
"It comprehensively finds and removes malicious software."
"It can reach our applications and PC activities in the cloud."
"We use Microsoft Defender for the antivirus."
"The comprehensiveness of Microsoft threat-protection products is great... Today, Microsoft Sentinel by itself is a leading Gartner SIEM tool. It has advantages over competitors because of the ability to integrate with Microsoft solutions and automate continuous monitoring of Microsoft AD and Office 365 data."
"The fact that it's from Microsoft, you don't have many false positives, unlike products from other vendors might have."
"It has Kusto Query Language (KQL), so we can use our own queries to find anything."
"It's stable."
"The primary advantage is that you don't need to install it. It's included in the Windows 10 delivery."
"Defender is integrated into the operating system. It's integrated with everything. You don't have to spend time analyzing what you have to do to be sure that the integration is okay between the security tool and all the other apps. This, from my point of view, is the main advantage."
 

Cons

"Malwarebytes is too simplistic. From a SOC IR perspective, it doesn't give you very much data around it. It doesn't tie things or provide SHA-1 and SHA-256 detection information, which makes it hard to do an additional investigation."
"Malwarebytes is not there in the reports from Gartner or IDC...If we look at the market trends and the industry, most customers look at Gartner's reports to identify whether a product is a leader, challenger, or a big product, depending on which they choose."
"The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it."
"Malwarebytes should improve its mobile compatibility."
"We have noticed that when the solution is doing the scanning, all the scanning activities make the device heavier. It slows down your machine."
"If they want to compete with bigger players, they should consider adding items like threat detection and website warnings."
"The stability and performance of the solution are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."
"They could come up with better reporting capabilities."
"Some integration components for Mac should be added. We use both Windows 10 desktops and Mac desktops, but presently, the Mac component is still lagging a bit behind."
"The solution has minimal customization options, especially compared to Mandiant, so we want to see more scope for customization. A single portal for customization would also be a welcome addition."
"Features like device inventory continue to lack essential workstation drill-downs showing the entire device information with the least effort."
"Its interface can be improved a little bit. We would like to have some sort of centralization. It should have something like a central server that is managing all the other clients. There are solutions from Kaspersky or ESET NOD32 that are really doing this kind of thing currently. We would like to see something similar from Microsoft."
"The system can always be simplified and have a better integration check. More detailed reports would be good. When it does the integrated check, it just shows if the system is okay but I want to know what happened."
"It's not quite a mature solution just yet. It needs more time to grow and develop."
"There is a need for improvement in reducing false positives."
"Defender's cloud integration could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Malwarebytes is a cost-effective product."
"The cost may be something in the ballpark of $20-25 a year per computer."
"It is expensive."
"The licensing is per seat, with clients being a little less expensive than servers. If we need more licenses, we can accomplish that within a day. As Malwarebytes adds new features to their product, such as DNS filtering and a patching module, they want to charge us more even though we're a premium user, which isn't ideal."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"The platform pricing is competitive with other antivirus products."
"Its cost is around $60 a machine. The cost of the total solution for 250 people is about $8,500 a year. If we add EDR to it, it will bring that cost up to about $15,000. The cost for Carbon Black is about $25,000, which is $10,000 more, but you get all AI functions with it."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"There is no licensing fee."
"Licenses depend upon what you are looking for and what kind of security do you want to implement. There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. When we used to buy Symantec, we used to spend on 100 licenses. We used to spend approximately $2,700 for those many licenses, and they came in packs. To add one more license, I had to buy a pack with a minimum of 10 licenses. I had to spend on nine extra licenses because I can't get a single license, whereas when we go for Microsoft, we can get as many licenses as we want. If I have 100 users today, and tomorrow, I have 90 users, I can release my 10 licenses next month. With any other software vendor, you buy licenses for one year, and you have to stick with that. If today you have 100 licenses, and tomorrow, you have 50, you have already paid for one year's license. You can't go back and tell them that I don't require these 50 licenses because I have lost my 50 users, but with Microsoft Defender, licensing is on a monthly basis. It gives you both options. You can go yearly and save on it, or you can go monthly. You will, again, save on it. It is very fair everywhere."
"The licensing costs for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are reasonable."
"If we are acquiring everything in a single place, the front end becomes cost-effective."
"The solution comes as part of Microsoft Windows."
"They are now doing it on an endpoint basis. It is based on the number of endpoints, which is good."
"Microsoft Defender ATP is expensive."
"It is an expensive solution. It would be nice if it could be included with the Microsoft Office package."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
University
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Malwarebytes?
Ten times a day, improved signatures will be downloaded, so it is very up-to-date in terms of malware experience.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Malwarebytes?
I really hate the automatic rebilling without officially confirming it with me. It's an annoyance and they should at least confirm with me, like a month before they bill me.
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes?
It takes up too much space when it's trying to run in the background.
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

Knutson Construction
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Malwarebytes Teams vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.