Microsoft Defender for Business vs Symantec Endpoint Security Complete comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Business and Symantec Endpoint Security Complete based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Symantec Endpoint Security Complete Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It is a scalable solution...The initial setup of Fortinet FortiEDR was straightforward.""It notifies us if there's any suspicious file on any PC. If any execution or similar kind of thing is happening, it just alerts us. It doesn't only alert. It also blocks the execution until we allow it. We check whether the execution is legitimate or not, and then approve it or keep it blocked. This gives us a little bit of control over this mechanism. Fortinet FortiEDR is also very straightforward and easy to maintain.""Fortinet FortiEDR's scalability is quite good, and you can add licenses to the solution.""The solution was relatively easy to deploy.""The setup is pretty simple.""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.""The ease of deployment and configuration is valuable. It's very easy compared to other vendors like Sophos. Sophos' configuration is complex. Fortinet is a lot easier to understand. You don't need a lot of admin knowledge to do the configuration.""Fortinet is very user-friendly for customers."

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"The interface is quite user-friendly.""It is scalable.""If you're an Intune user, you can bring in certain capabilities like system-hardening policies, which further enhances the security.""A few things are valuable. One is the alerting we see when any kind of intrusion is happening, any kind of malware is being deployed across the endpoints, or any kind of suspicious activity is going on. We have a footprint across all of North America, Canada, and Mexico, so we want to make sure that all our endpoints are protected and we are able to look for any anomalous activity.""Microsoft Defender for Business is good for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers solid security flexibility and integration with tools like Microsoft Lighthouse and some other software. It takes some of the features of Defender for Endpoint EDR and provides those services for small and medium-sized business environments."

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"I am impressed with the tool's detection response.""One of the most valuable features includes elements such as host libraries.""Endpoint security platform that provides protection for Active Directory environments, file servers, etc., and offers excellent technical support.""It protects emails and messages shared between users.""Setting up Symantec is straightforward. Our DevOps team handled the installation, so I wasn't involved, but it wasn't that complicated. They are competent people with certifications in anti-virus management. They didn't need any training or help from the vendor.""One feature I found most valuable in Symantec Endpoint Security Complete is the firewall feature on the endpoint. The firewall feature helps users handle virus outbreaks.""The SONAR feature is valuable as it offers real-time protection and threat rejection.""The most valuable features of Symantec Endpoint Security Complete for me are sandboxing and its threat-hunting capabilities."

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Cons
"We've had a lot of false positives; things incorrectly flagged that require manual configuration to allow. Even worse, after we allow a legitimate program, it sometimes gets flagged again after an update. This has caused a lot of extra work for my team.""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.""Integration with Azure and SaaS provisioning tools could improve Fortinet FortiEDR.""To improve Fortinet, we need to see more features and technology areas at the endpoint level introduced.""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.""FortiEDR can be improved by providing more detailed reporting.""Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later."

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"The biggest one is that Defender needs to be more proactive to the emerging threats. There can be tighter integration with email, especially how it integrates with our email system, which is the Microsoft Outlook suite. There should be the ability to react a lot quicker to emerging threats because sometimes, it takes a few days before some of these new threats are fully identified, and we need that to be a few hours.""The security could always be improved.""Defender's threat protection should be fine-tuned to reduce false positives. It could be more targeted, reflecting a continuous evolution in detecting. Also, it could be easier to integrate into other environments.""Defender's reporting is rather scattered, and its URL filtering mechanism doesn't really work.""We faced some issues while running some applications on Mac."

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"The deployment of Symantec components could be improved.""Symantec Endpoint Security Complete does not cover everything on the cloud. It does not cover the workstation emails. There are risks associated with it.""Symantec could have better support for iOS and Android mobile devices.""An area for improvement in Symantec Endpoint Security Complete is that it needs to be developed more because competitors have started providing EDR and XDR functionalities, but in the product, those are still missing. Another area for improvement in Symantec Endpoint Security Complete is that it needs to be lightweight. Currently, the product is very heavy when compared to other vendors. It takes up too much space on the hard drive and the memory.""The product’s scalability must be improved.""Enhancements in malware analysis and behavior detection would be beneficial.""Installation and packaging for Symantec Endpoint Security Complete should be improved. Its console is also confusing, so that's another area for improvement.""The Threat Defense for Active Directory feature has a problem in that it is not possible to deploy it within a hybrid management architecture... we would have to migrate all the infrastructure to be managed by the cloud to deploy this feature, so we have not deployed it."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "I know it is tough to get big budget additions up front, but I highly recommend deploying environment wide and adding the forensic service."
  • "There are no issues with the pricing."
  • "The price is comprable to other endpoint security solutions."
  • "The pricing is typical for enterprises and fairly priced."
  • "I'm not familiar with pricing, but it looks a bit costly compared to other vendors I think."
  • "The pricing is good."
  • "I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
  • "The hardware costs about €100,000 and about €20,000 annually for access."
  • More Fortinet FortiEDR Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Defender for Business is included by default with an Office 365 premium subscription."
  • "It has to get more competitive because we are starting to see some of the competitors providing better pricing, and some of it, of course, is to gain market share. The Defender product pricing is probably a little higher than the competitors."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Business Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I'm recommending going with three-year licensing, rather than the yearly licensing option for this product."
  • "In terms of costs, Symantec Endpoint Security Complete has become costlier compared to how much it was in the past. The cost of the product is very high now. The customer needs to pay extra for additional features, but not for technical support. For example, if you need an email gateway or if you are looking for URL filtering, you have to pay extra, and that's where the costs for Symantec Endpoint Security Complete become higher."
  • "The pricing is good. It's good value for the money."
  • "The product's pricing is dependent on partnership levels. The solution's price is competitive compared to other solutions."
  • "License renewal is not a straightforward process. I have a three-year subscription. It takes a long time to renew the license after three years. It is not proactive on that. The solution is expensive for the coverage that it does. I have to include other products to complement the protection that Symantec Endpoint Security Complete does not cover. We have to pay 18 euros. There are no additional support or maintenance costs."
  • "It's cost-effective and well-suited for smaller to midrange companies."
  • More Symantec Endpoint Security Complete Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:I suggest Fortinet’s FortiEDR over FortiClient for several reasons. For starters, FortiEDR guarantees solid protection… more »
    Top Answer: Having all monitoring, response, tracking, and mitigation tools in one dashboard provides our analysts and SOC team… more »
    Top Answer:The pricing is significantly high. The implementation of this solution required us to allocate additional funds beyond… more »
    Top Answer:A few things are valuable. One is the alerting we see when any kind of intrusion is happening, any kind of malware is… more »
    Top Answer:It has to get more competitive because we are starting to see some of the competitors providing better pricing, and some… more »
    Top Answer:The biggest one is that Defender needs to be more proactive to the emerging threats. There can be tighter integration… more »
    Top Answer:The most valuable features of Symantec Endpoint Security Complete for me are sandboxing and its threat-hunting… more »
    Top Answer:I would rate Symantec as a five out of ten in terms of costliness. Our licensing costs for Symantec Endpoint Security… more »
    Top Answer:Symantec Endpoint Security Complete could improve by integrating more easily with other Symantec security products. In… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    enSilo, FortiEDR
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiEDR is a real-time endpoint protection, detection, and automated response solution. Its primary purpose is to detect advanced threats to stop breaches and ransomware damage. It is designed to do so in real time, even on an already compromised device, allowing you to respond and remediate incidents automatically so your data can remain protected.

    Fortinet FortiEDR Features

    Fortinet FortiEDR has many valuable key features, including:

    • Easily customizable
    • Real-time proactive risk mitigation & IoT security
    • Pre-infection protection
    • Post-infection protection
    • Track applications and ratings
    • Reduce the attack surface with risk-based proactive policies
    • Achieve analysis of entire log history
    • Optional managed detection and response (MDR) service

    Fortinet FortiEDR Benefits

    Some of the key benefits of using Fortinet FortiEDR include:

    • Protection: Fortinet FortiEDR provides proactive, real-time, automated endpoint protection with the orchestrated incident response across platforms. It stops the breach with real-time postinfection blocking to protect data from exfiltration and ransomware encryption.

    • Single unified console: Fortinet FortiEDR has a single unified console with an intuitive interface, which makes management easier. The solution automates mundane endpoint security tasks so your employees don’t need to do it.

    • Cost savings: With Fortinet FortiEDR you can eliminate post-breach operational expenses and breach damage costs.

    • Flexibility: Fortinet FortiEDR can be deployed on premises or on a secure cloud instance. With Fortinet FortiEDR, endpoints are protected both on- and off-line.

    • Scalability: Because Fortinet can be deployed quickly and has a small footprint, it is easy to scale up to protect hundreds of thousand endpoints.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Fortinet FortiEDR users.

    An Owner at a security firm says, "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. The customer has literally about 800 cash registers. That was the use case for Fortinet FortiEDR - to get that down into a tiny space. The only way to do that was to use this product because it had that ability to unbundle services that were a surplus.”

    Chandan M., Chief Technical Officer at Provision Technologies LLP, mentions, “The ease of deployment and configuration is valuable. It's very easy compared to other vendors like Sophos. Sophos' configuration is complex. Fortinet is a lot easier to understand. You don't need a lot of admin knowledge to do the configuration.” He also adds, “The security is also very good and the firewall response is good.”

    Harpreet S., Information Technology Support Specialist at Chemtrade Logistics, explains, "It notifies us if there's any suspicious file on any PC. If any execution or similar kind of thing is happening, it just alerts us. It doesn't only alert. It also blocks the execution until we allow it. We check whether the execution is legitimate or not, and then approve it or keep it blocked. This gives us a little bit of control over this mechanism. Fortinet FortiEDR is also very straightforward and easy to maintain."

    DeAndre V., Senior Network Administrator at a financial services firm, states, “The dashboard is easy to follow and use. The deployment and uninstalling were easy. I like the detailed information about the path of a file that might be suspicious. Being able to check that out was easy to follow. Exceptions are easy to create and the interface is easy to follow with a nice appearance.

    Microsoft Defender for Business is a new endpoint security solution that was designed especially for the small and medium-sized business (up to 300 employees). With this endpoint security solution, your company's devices are better protected from ransomware, malware, phishing, and other threats.

    Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) Complete delivers comprehensive protection for all your traditional and mobile devices across the entire attack chain. Symantec endpoint innovations include behavioral isolation, Active Directory security, and Threat Hunter technologies to protect your endpoints against sophisticated threats and targeted attacks. For higher return-on-investment and lower total cost of ownership, this single-agent solution supports on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-based deployments.

    Sample Customers
    Financial, Healthcare, Legal, Technology, Enterprise, Manufacturing ... 
    Information Not Available
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Pharma/Biotech Company5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Retailer6%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company29%
    Transportation Company14%
    Security Firm14%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business35%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise47%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Symantec Endpoint Security Complete
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Symantec Endpoint Security Complete and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Defender for Business is ranked 46th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 5 reviews while Symantec Endpoint Security Complete is ranked 30th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 12 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Business is rated 8.0, while Symantec Endpoint Security Complete is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Business writes "Quicker response time, improved security posture, and reduced alerts". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Symantec Endpoint Security Complete writes "A reliable solution for endpoint protection ". Microsoft Defender for Business is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Office 365, HP Wolf Security, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Intune and Intercept X Endpoint, whereas Symantec Endpoint Security Complete is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise and SentinelOne Singularity Complete. See our Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Symantec Endpoint Security Complete report.

    See our list of best Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) 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.