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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection 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

Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
Proofpoint Targeted Attack ...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
33rd
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 5.5%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection is 1.3%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint5.5%
Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection1.3%
Other93.2%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
KC
Information Security Specialist at Methanex Chile SpA
Dynamic runtime engine and good protection, but needs better support and a single console
We have two to three issues per month. We contact Proofpoint's customer support for these issues. I am a major point of contact for support. If I am not able to resolve an issue, we will be reaching out to them. Proofpoint can take a couple of days to get back. I also deal with other applications from Okta and Microsoft, and we get the support within a couple of hours. There is a lot of difference between a couple of hours and a couple of days. So, Proofpoint's support should be improved. Okta and Microsoft are also able to do a Zoom or video call, but Proofpoint provides support only through email communication. Only if you request, it would be a Zoom or video session.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Auto-remediation: When the product sees malware, it resolves the issue immediately. This protects the machine."
"With Microsoft Security Center, you have a complete overview of your environment; you know the software inventory, you have security recommendations, you can not only see that the antivirus is up to date, but also where the vulnerabilities in your system are, including old, deprecated software and what kind of CVEs are addressed, which is really cool stuff."
"It's one of the best antiviruses on the market."
"I like the real-time protection features. Windows Defender will detect if there's a threat like a Trojan or something like that but Kaspersky lets it run normally."
"It's pretty easy to scale."
"Technical support is good."
"Microsoft Defender is always running. It is doing its job, so it is fine. I don't have any issues with the way it was implemented or how we are running it. We have been upgrading IT throughout the years, but there have been no issues."
"There is no licensing fee, as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes included with the Windows license."
"Proofpoint's major module is email protection, and most of the spam emails that have been directed towards our organization have been locked by Proofpoint, so we have escaped from threat hunters."
"It has a dynamic runtime engine, which gives it an advantage over Prisma that has a static engine. In Prisma, we have to do additional malware analysis, which is not required in Proofpoint."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can improve by providing more and different types of reports."
"It should support non-Windows products better. Microsoft is now one of the leading vendors in the security area. So, they should be product-independent."
"Notifications are always popping up — I hate that."
"The dashboards could be better."
"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."
"More hooks and more reporting would be beneficial. More proactive reporting would be ideal."
"They should bring back the feature of a dedicated proxy device for communication to the cloud. As of now, all the agents are required to send the logs directly to the cloud. There should be a solution where you can put a proxy and all the logs are consolidated, like a forwarder."
"I would like to see better integration with their other security products to give better visibility from a higher level."
"We are using the TRAP console that has a Linux-based UI, which is not user-friendly."
"We are using the TRAP console that has a Linux-based UI, which is not user-friendly. The TAP console looks very advanced. Currently, we are maintaining three different consoles, and it is sometimes hard to switch between them or try to grab the data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender ATP is expensive."
"The price of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is reasonable. Other solutions are more expensive, such as ClowdStrike."
"There are different licenses, such as E3 and E5."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes with Windows 10, and it's free. But for you to be able to manage it in the cloud and use the console, you need to have either an Office 365 E5 subscription or a Microsoft M365 subscription. You need to buy an extra license."
"The price was a problem for me three years ago, but they improved their E3, E5, and a la carte licensing. In other words, you have to get all of E5. That used to be a problem because you had E3, Defender, and guardrails, but you needed an E5 license to get the management suite and the analytics. It's more flexible now. You can switch from a la carte to the entire suite when it starts to make sense. It's becoming more economically competitive to go that route."
"Licensing options vary. Some customers buy it as an enterprise agreement and pay yearly. Others buy it as a CSP, so they pay per month. It completely depends on the customer's needs."
"The license for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included in the license for the Microsoft Windows operating system."
"The solution comes as a part of Windows 10 and it is covered under its license."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise95
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
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Also Known As

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Targeted Attack Protection
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Brinker Capital
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, Proofpoint and others in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Updated: February 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.