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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (9th)
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.1%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps2.0%
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection2.1%
Other95.9%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
information Security and IT Manager at Discover Dollar Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Integration with existing cloud workflows has simplified compliance and threat detection
Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model. Each feature has its own pricing when activated on VMs. For example, the vulnerability assessment has separate pricing, the base model including encryptions has separate pricing, and the compliance features have separate pricing. This applies to each VM and Azure resource individually. It is not straightforward where you can take one license and apply it to everything. Each feature has its own pricing model which can be tedious, as the costs keep accumulating. The only lacking feature currently is XDR (extended detection and response). Apart from that, I have only positive experiences with the whole Microsoft suite, except for the pricing structure.
TapabrataSamanta - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Architect at Zones
Reliable platform with effective integration capabilities
Our primary use case for the product is to provide advanced threat protection to our clients, primarily in the banking and financial sectors Symantec ATP has been beneficial in ensuring robust security for our clients. Its effectiveness in detecting and mitigating threats has improved customer…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most effective features for data protection are data loss prevention (DLP) and data classification."
"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."
"From what I've seen, it's a good product."
"In summary, we have just begun using this product but so far, it works well and we are satisfied with it."
"The benefit you get is that you are able to monitor all your applications and control the data that goes out of those applications."
"It has helped identify areas where we should improve, make changes to improve, the reason why we should make a change, and the impact of making the change."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is to stop shadow IT."
"The general usability of the solution is very straightforward."
"Overall, the product supports everything already feature-wise, because it has email protection, monitoring detection, network intrusion detection, and advanced threat protection."
"What I like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is its notification capability."
"The incident management on the solution is very good. You get a lot of detailed information about an incident. You also get a lot of documentation in connection with the CVI or integration."
"They have a very simple and easy implementation; they have been around for a long time, and they have been very easy to deploy, support, and manage."
"The most valuable feature is Click-time URL protection."
"They manage to solve detection quite nicely, with rather elaborate detection compared to other providers, and Symantec also provides a useful set of information linked to each of the attacked computers."
"All of the solution's features are quite valuable for us, and we especially like the threat protection it provides."
"Their integrations are pretty good as are their Sandbox solutions, their proxies, and their LTAs with API or ICAP protocols."
 

Cons

"It takes some time to scan and apply the policies when there is some sensitive information. After it applies the policies, it works, but there is a delay. This is something for which we are working with Microsoft."
"Sometimes the support is actually lacking."
"A significant improvement I would like to see is the integration into a single pane of glass, which would allow me to view everything in one place rather than having to switch between different areas."
"We are having trouble with our continuous reporting configuration and struggling with configuring the collector properly with our log parsing. We've also faced difficulties getting support for this issue. It's taken us months to figure this out after going through a couple of different support channels."
"I would like more customization of notifications. Currently, you either get everything or you get limited information. I would like to have something in between where we can customize the data that is included in notifications."
"If this solution were more robust then it would be much more useful."
"Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports."
"They need to improve the attack surface reduction (ASR) rules. In the latest version, you can implement ASR rules, which are quite useful, but you have to enable those because if they're not enabled, they flag false positives. In the Defender portal, it logs a block for WMI processes and PowerShell. Apparently, it's because ASR rules are not configured. So, you generally have to enable them to exclude, for example, WMI queries or PowerShell because they have a habit of blocking your security scanners. It's a bit weird that they have to be enabled to be configured, and it's not the other way around."
"An improvement could be made on the reporting because then it would be easier to collect information and submit it for compliance."
"The support for new OSs and older OSs could be a little tighter. They need to be more upfront about what protection services they're going to provide on new OSs. I haven't seen the Windows 11 version out yet. It is either already released in Beta, or the Beta will be released soon. There could be a little bit more advanced updates on what they're doing to help protect Windows 11 environments. They can let us know in advance so that we know it is going to be protected. We can't roll out the new OS without putting end-point protection on it. So, they should tell us what is their support model for that, and what are they doing to protect Windows 11. They're not telling me, and that's a criticism. The same issue is applicable to all the other antivirus tools. It is not just Symantec; all of them have this problem."
"I think SonicWall and McAfee are better solutions."
"Symantec appliances need improvement. The whole appliance environment is a robust system and it needs a massive amount of storage space. If you have to increase or speed up the background storage it's a pretty complicated process. The scalability and sizing is critical, and if you do it wrong you run into issues pretty quickly."
"They could enhance the solution to work across all devices, including Android, iOS, and Mac, and make it more user-friendly."
"The administration interface needs a lot of improvement. It should be UI-based and simple."
"The cloud platform needs to have improvement in terms of the user interface and the different capabilities it has available. It needs to match the other leading next-gen EDR products that are available in the market. That's the reason why we are stepping away from Symantec. Their cloud environment is just generally lacking in comparison to others."
"The support has dropped down to a five out of ten."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is on the higher side. Its price is definitely very high for a small-scale company. As an enterprise client, we do get benefits from Microsoft. We get a discounted price because of the number of users we have in our company. We have a premier package, and with that, we do get a lot of discounts. There are no additional costs. It only comes in the top-tier packages. Generally, the top-tier license is the best license that you can get for your organization. If you want, you can buy it separately, but that's not a good idea."
"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."
"It has pretty good pricing."
"The cost could be improved when you need to pay for anything. For example, refreshing files takes time to load, though it may be my Internet. To improve the refresh time, Microsoft says that we need to pay for a Premium license, and I don't like paying for things that help make a solution better."
"It has fair pricing. You pay for what you get. As far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"Microsoft offers bundle discounts and a pay-as-you-go option."
"The product's pricing seems fair."
"We utilize the Microsoft E5 licensing, which encompasses the entire Microsoft suite; however, it is costly."
"The price is quite expensive."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has...
What needs improvement with Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
One area for improvement could be the pricing model. Future releases could further enhance integration capabilities with other platforms and simplify the licensing model to compete more with Micros...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
Our primary use case for the product is to provide advanced threat protection to our clients, primarily in the banking and financial sectors.
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
Symantec ATP has proven to be a reliable and effective solution. I rate it a nine out of ten.
 

Also Known As

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.