Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Varonis Platform comparison

The compared Microsoft and Varonis solutions aren't in the same category. Microsoft is ranked #2 in EPP , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 9.9% mindshare in the category. Varonis is ranked #9 in DLP , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Varonis users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Defender for Endp...

Read 198 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint reviews

35,345 Views
20,500 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Varonis Platform

Read 14 Varonis Platform reviews

9,243 Views
2,126 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Microsoft Defender for Endp...

Varonis Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 7, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Varonis Platform compete in the security enhancement category, with Defender having the upper hand due to its seamless integration with Microsoft products and broader ecosystem appeal.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers seamless integration with Microsoft products, comprehensive protection, and options for firewall management. Varonis Platform provides thorough insights into data access activities and governance, focusing on complex data environments.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender struggles with integration with non-Microsoft products and lacks a unified dashboard for its offerings. Varonis requires smoother cloud integration and faces cost challenges that might deter smaller companies.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender is easy to roll out in hybrid and cloud environments, though it sometimes struggles with third-party integrations. Its technical support receives mixed reviews for responsiveness. Varonis has good technical support and is adopting cloud solutions, yet its learning curve can be challenging.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender is cost-effective within the Microsoft ecosystem, benefiting from pricing flexibility and bundling. Varonis represents a higher cost due to its specialized capabilities, but offers valuable return on investment for data governance in larger enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)

September 2025

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Helped 869,089 peers since 2012

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...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

198

Ranking in other categories

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (5th)

Varonis Platform

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Email Security (20th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (7th), Data Governance (4th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (7th), Ransomware Protection (10th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th), Insider Risk Management (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is designed for Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) and holds a mindshare of 9.9%, down 12.4% compared to last year.
Varonis Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Data Loss Prevention (DLP), holds 5.9% mindshare, up 4.4% since last year.

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint	9.9%
CrowdStrike Falcon	7.9%
HP Wolf Security	6.3%
Other	75.9%

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Varonis Platform	5.9%
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention	12.6%
Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention	8.5%
Other	73.0%

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Featured Reviews

NaySan @ Suraj Verma

Solution Consultant at BIM Group of Companies

Has effectively blocked sophisticated attacks and malicious activities while providing excellent support

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is very good, but one suggestion is that in some products, we may need to configure security-related settings, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint works completely differently, providing automatic recommendations and actions that we may need to perform ourselves. Regarding the pricing of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, during the last three years, we set up the product and sold it, but we faced difficulties because Microsoft pricing is always the same. For example, whether I purchase Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for one year or for the next three years, the pricing remains constant with no discounts available. In contrast, competing products offer reduced pricing for long-term commitments, which makes it difficult for us in that environment. Microsoft should consider this option to remain competitive, but otherwise, everything else is fine.

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Frederic Delos

Senior Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Offers the ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data

The most effective feature for me is its ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data, provided you have access, to determine whether it's a false positive or a true positive. That's the best thing for me, out of all of it. It's got everything, like other ones, but I like to be able to look at something if I'm doing forensics on the alert and say, "Okay, do I really need to do something with this?" For example, we don't want sensitive data in our OneDrive. So it identifies the sensitive data that's possibly in the OneDrive. And what I can do is look at it and identify whether it's actually sensitive data in Datalert or whether it looks like sensitive data, but I know it's a false positive. If it is a false positive, I can basically say ignore this pattern based on X, Y, and Z, you know, whether it's Redjax or keyword proximity. So I like that. With other tools, I gotta go through a whole process because it's a little bit more complex. Here, I can tag it and bag it in one shot. And the next good time I scan, it slips over it. So it helps in that.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It shows us the risky sign-ins, and if a user's password has been compromised."

"Defender for Endpoint has one dashboard with security-related information, vulnerability-related information, and basic recommendations from Microsoft, all in different tabs. That's helpful because if we want to fix only the recommended ones, we can go fix all of them..."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it is embedded into the Windows system. Additionally, the performance is good and simple to maintain."

"Defender should be fine for home use. It has all the basic functionality you need. I can't speak to how well it works as an enterprise solution because I'm not in the space."

"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."

"The most valuable features are the Windows Firewall and the regular virus definition updates. These features are very helpful and have helped to improve our security."

"The installation is straightforward."

"The biggest benefit to Windows Defender is that it is built-in to the operating system by Microsoft."

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint pros

"Varonis offers robust data access governance, allowing us to understand which sensitive data exists and who has access to it."

"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."

"That alerting and reporting service is great."

"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."

"The 24/7 support is the most valuable feature. They have been able to answer support questions pretty quickly."

"Varonis Platform is transparent and captures everything in the environment without impacting the performance. The tool helps us unify data feeds into a single reporting system."

"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."

"The analytics would have to be our most valuable feature."

More Varonis Platform pros

Cons

"In terms of the architecture of the management infrastructure, we found that other technologies are more simple. Microsoft Defender could be simpler too."

"My main issue with the tool is that there are too many menus. This causes a steep learning curve for those without training or unfamiliar with Defender for Endpoint. From an end-user perspective, the solution is there on the machine and does its job; it works seamlessly. However, as a security professional dealing with it behind the scenes, the learning curve can be steep, but not too steep. Still, it has taken some of my analysts up to a month to get familiar with the product."

"I would like to see integrations with other products, such as Spunk and other CM solutions. That would create possibilities for me, and for a SOC, to consolidate all events in an older console, not one provided by Microsoft but provided by a third party, and use it to create more insights."

"If they integrate with the EDR then it will benefit this solution."

"I have accounts for administrators and corporate employees, but I also have accounts for students. I can't split these types of accounts. I need a separate configuration for both... I need to research how I can get alerts for only the administrative machines."

"In active mode, it's great that it gives you so much information, but it does record every keystroke so you have a lot of logs... that amount of data logging started to add up in the cost."

"I would just like them to have more consistency, and that's a comment that's across the board with Microsoft. They change things a lot."

"Microsoft Defender in the basic form is not very useful for managing the security environment. The free version is not capable of covering the needs of centralized management, EDR, and behavioral analysis. If you don't have the commercial version, you can't have centralized management and set up the policies and other things. Each client is a standalone installation, which is not useful for security in an enterprise model."

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint cons

"We have Microsoft Office 365. I just saw an article today which says that they're actually getting integrated with Microsoft Office 365, which would be a useful feature. For user-based reports, log on activity, and stuff like that, it doesn't seem to really be present like Log360. That could just be my inexperience with it. I've been dealing with it for only about two and a half months."

"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."

"The remediation process can be improved. There will be no existing permission group for the McAfee channel domains. We can create a new permissions group for the required folder."

"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."

"There is one thing that if I add something manually, I get so many alerts. That's the biggest bad thing."

"It is significantly complex."

"The product is very complicated."

"The GUI should be more functional. There should be a process for connecting through Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc."

More Varonis Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is included with Microsoft Windows."

"There is not a license required for this particular solution."

"We went for Microsoft Defender once we were informed that it would be part of our Office 365 package. So, we combined the licensing for the OS with Office 365. Yeah. We thought it was a good bargain."

"Everybody would like to see a lower price on everything. The Slovenian market is basically an SME market with clients having up to 100 seat licenses, comprising 90% of the company. They're very price sensitive. So, the price could be cheaper."

"Microsoft Defender is an expensive product in my country."

"The E5 license is the one that I recommend because it comes with Cloud App Security, which is a good thing to have on top of Microsoft Defender."

"Currently, for us, Windows Defender is free with the purchase of Windows Server. Pricing is an important point for us when we are looking at the competitors of this solution. If we choose to go with another vendor, we will have to pay some license fees."

"Most people don't realize M365/E5 licenses are an amazing deal. They think "Oh, it's expensive," and I'll ask, "Compared to what?" If you don't have it you will have to buy licenses for multiple products to fill the same security space that you would have gotten with the Microsoft product. Go figure out how much it costs you per product, per user, and then come back and tell me how things add up financially."

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint pricing and cost advice

"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."

"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."

"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."

"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."

"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."

"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	79
Midsize Enterprise	34
Large Enterprise	87

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	11

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...

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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...

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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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Varonis Platform?

The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand w...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?

Varonis started as an on-premises solution and is transitioning to cloud. It hasn't fully moved yet, which is an area for improvement. Varonis requires more access permissions for its core function...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?

The primary use case for Varonis Platform is data discovery, specifically for discovering sensitive data in our organization to protect it. We are looking for a solution that can scan our repositor...

See all answers

Comparisons

HP Wolf Security vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 5% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 5% of the time

F-Secure Total vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 4% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 4% of the time

Trellix Endpoint Security Platform vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Competitors

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Varonis Platform

Compared 21% of the time

Cyera vs Varonis Platform

Compared 11% of the time

BigID vs Varonis Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Wiz vs Varonis Platform

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs Varonis Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More Varonis Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

September 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Endpoint product report

Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform

September 2025

Download Varonis Platform product report

Also Known As

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

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Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

Varonis

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for organizations. It offers real-time protection against various types of cyber threats, including malware, viruses, ransomware, and phishing attacks.

With its powerful machine-learning capabilities, it can detect and block sophisticated attacks before they can cause any harm. The solution also includes endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities, allowing organizations to quickly investigate and respond to security incidents. It provides detailed insights into the attack timeline, enabling security teams to understand the scope and impact of an incident.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint also offers proactive threat hunting, allowing organizations to proactively search for and identify potential threats within their network. It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft security solutions, such as Microsoft Defender XDR, to provide a unified and holistic security approach. With its centralized management console, organizations can easily deploy, configure, and monitor the security solution across their entire network.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a robust and scalable security solution that helps organizations protect their endpoints and data from evolving cyber threats.

Microsoft

Varonis Platform enhances data security and governance with advanced analytics, identifying unusual access patterns and sensitive areas. Its centralized interface manages permissions across systems, offering essential capabilities for alerting and reporting.

Varonis Platform provides continuous data protection and monitoring by identifying and alerting on unauthorized data access. It offers comprehensive insights into file access and user activities, supporting data classification and simplifying compliance with tracking and monitoring capabilities. Integration with storage systems enables users to manage permissions and access effectively. Room for improvement includes cloud integration and simplifying its interface and calculation engine for ease of use. Challenges include on-premises dependency, licensing costs, and a need for enhanced DLP capabilities.

What are the primary features of Varonis Platform?

24/7 Technical Support: Ensures continuous assistance and issue resolution.
Advanced Analytics: Identifies unusual data access patterns for increased security.
Centralized Permission Management: Manages access permissions across systems.
Data Classification: Categorizes data to enhance protection measures.
Integration with Storage Systems: Simplifies compliance through tracking and monitoring.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Increased Security: Protects against unauthorized data access.
Compliance Simplification: Offers comprehensive tracking and monitoring to meet compliance standards.
Efficient Permission Management: Simplifies access controls across platforms.
Enhanced Alerting: Provides timely notifications of potential security breaches.

In finance, Varonis aids in safeguarding sensitive financial data, while in healthcare, it secures patient records. Legal industries utilize it for protecting client information, and retail sectors manage sensitive customer data. These industries benefit from Varonis' ability to prevent unauthorized access and streamline compliance.

Varonis

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health

Nottingham Building Society

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