We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Symantec Endpoint Detection and Response based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the industry leader for Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions. It is very well integrated and can handle almost anything. Users can control everything through a very intuitive central console. The solution works continuously and uses next-generation AI to keep every endpoint safe at all times. Symantec users say it can be a bit buggy and is complex to learn, making it less desirable.
"The integration with other Cisco products seemed to be really effective. We had Umbrella in place and we were using AnyConnect as well as Firepower. Once a threat was detected, being able to do the threat lookups and the live tracking was really useful."
"I'm only using the AMP (advanced malware protection) which is protecting my file system from all the malicious things that might happen. It should protect all kinds of things that might happen on the servers, things that I cannot see."
"It is extensive in terms of providing visibility and insights into threats. It allows for research into a threat, and you can chart your progress on how you're resolving it."
"appreciate the File Trajectory feature, as it's excellent for an analyst or mobile analyst. I can track everything that happens on our server from my PC or device. Integration with SecureX is a welcome feature because it connects Cisco's integrated security portfolio with our complete infrastructure. Sandboxing is helpful, and integration with the Cisco environment is excellent as we use many of their products, and that's very valuable for us."
"Device Trajectory is one of the most valuable features. We're able to dig in and really understand how things came to be and where to focus our efforts."
"Another of my favorite features is called the Device Trajectory, where it shows everything that's going on, on a computer. It shows the point in time when a virus is downloaded, so you can see if the user was surfing the internet or had a program open. It shows every running process and file access on the computer and saves it like a snapshot when it detects something malicious. It also has a File Trajectory, so you can even see if that file has been found on any of your other computers that have AMP."
"The threat Grid with the ability to observe the sandboxing, analyze, and perform investigations of different malicious files has been great."
"The most valuable feature is signature-based malware detection."
"The best part is that it is built into Windows, whether it is a server base or a desktop base, which gives more control over the operating system. Because Defender, the operating system, and the Office solution are by Microsoft, everything is working like hand-in-glove. Its administrative overhead is less because a desktop user has already got some experience of how to handle a Microsoft Defender notification or administer it."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is beneficial because we are using Microsoft Windows and all the core solutions are made by Microsoft, such as the authentic platform, operating system, and antivirus protection. It is a heterogeneous environment. We had to use third-party solutions before and update everything separately. For example, the policy for antivirus. With Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, when Microsoft Windows receives updates it will update with it. This is one main advantage of this solution."
"The main features of this solution are that it handles everything by itself and is well integrated."
"What I found most valuable in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it's out-of-the-box, which brings more value to the customer. The technical support for the product is also one of the best parts, because it's good, in terms of the product knowledge of the technical engineers."
"The visibility into threats that the solution provides is pretty awesome... This is something that makes me think, "Wow, okay. If I had my own organization, I would probably get this too." It stops the threat before an employee gets phished or something gets downloaded to their computer."
"The solution has an easy-to-use interface, is always updated, and is user-friendly."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable. Currently, we have 600,000 users in our organization."
"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."
"I like the additional features that come with it. The firewall feature and the encryption feature that they throw in are good as well. Another thing that I like about Symantec is that it runs on different platforms, not just on Windows."
"The valuable features are device control, SONOR, and anti-virus."
"The most useful features are the antivirus, anti-spyware, and the firewall feature. It also provides application control and Host Integrity, which is a very unique feature."
"One of the most valuable features is its antivirus database, which is current and updated daily. Another valuable feature is its capacity to be managed by a single server. The solution is managed by a secure server, so all the endpoints are managed from a central point."
"We are using it on 1,600 computers. All the systems and servers are protected with the Symantec solution. Our environment has an uptime of 99.9% because we never had any attack or issue related to viruses. There is zero downtime."
"The product has been quite stable."
"The application and device control are valuable features, and the live update is another one. We have a schedule to check every four hours for the live update."
"The solution can scale."
"The GUI needs improvement, it's not good."
"It could be improved in connection with artificial intelligence and IoT."
"We don't have issues. We think that Cisco covers all of the security aspects on the market. They continue to innovate in the right way."
"In Orbital, there are tons of prebuilt queries, but there is not a lot of information in lay terms. There isn't enough information to help us with what we're looking for and why we are looking for it with this query. There are probably a dozen queries in there that really focus on what I need to focus on, but they are not always easy to find the first time through."
"They could improve the main dashboard to more clearly show me the things that I want to see. When I open the dashboard right now, I see a million things and they are not always the things that I need."
"The thing I hate the most, which they have not fixed, is when it creates duplicate entries within a console. If you have a computer and you upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, or you upgrade your agent from version 6 to 7, it creates a new instance in there instead of updating the information. Instead of paying a license for one computer, I have to license two computers until I manually go in, search for all the duplicate entries, and clean them out myself."
"This product has issues with the number of false positives that it reports."
"The Linux agent is a simple offline classic agent, and it doesn't support Secure Boot, which is important to have on a Linux machine. The Linux agent has conflicts with other solutions, including the Exploit Prevention system found in Windows servers. We didn't find a fix during troubleshooting, and Cisco couldn't offer one either. Eventually, we had to shut down the Exploit Prevention system. We didn't like that as we always want a solution that can fit smoothly into the setup without causing problems, especially where security is concerned. The tool also caused CPU spikes on our production machine, and we were seriously considering moving to another product."
"The frequency of the patching, and the frequency of the updates, are not included with the free version."
"Sometimes, there are different skews. In a basic skew, they should have basic log analysis without the need to integrate with any third-party or SIEM solutions, like Sentinel. This would make it so much easier for users who don't have log collection or log analysis."
"The solution could be even more secure and provide an even higher level of security."
"The solution could use improvement on the interface."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should have more transparency. In the latest edition of Windows, Windows 11, it is a compulsory requirement to connect to a Microsoft account, which in turn has implications for Defender. This should be removed."
"Cortex... has good investigation capabilities, out-of-the-box, in case there is an event that you'd like to investigate. It's quite convenient. Microsoft has those capabilities as well, but you need a bit more training on the product to get the basic information that you can get out-of-the-box with Cortex."
"We would like more customization."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration."
"There is room for improvement in the zero-day threat detection system."
"Using the management console is a bit complex. There are many features that we cannot use and we could use some help. We need some assistance to make them work better. They need to add features to make it simpler."
"Installation of the tool on a workstation requires some technical knowledge, which could be more straightforward."
"Technical support could be more responsive."
"The technical support could be a bit better."
"If there is a suspicious file, it is put into a sandbox where Symantec does an analysis. After the analysis, Symantec marks the file as a risk, but it doesn't blacklist or block the file. If a file is already known to be harmful, I would like them to automatically block or blacklist it to reduce the damage."
"The malware and ransomware protections could be improved, which was ultimately the reason why I stopped using the solution."
"The virus definitions could be updated more frequently."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) with 120 reviews while Symantec Endpoint Security is ranked 10th in EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) with 64 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0, while Symantec Endpoint Security is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "Enables ingestion of events directly into your SIEM/SOAR, but requires integration with all Defender products to work optimally". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Symantec Endpoint Security writes "The solution has given us visibility into compliance within our whole system and helped us ensure everything is updated". Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Sophos Intercept X, Crowdstrike Falcon Endpoint Security and XDR, SentinelOne, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and Check Point Harmony Endpoint, whereas Symantec Endpoint Security is most compared with Crowdstrike Falcon Endpoint Security and XDR, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, Trend Micro Deep Security, SentinelOne and Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business. See our Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Symantec Endpoint Security report.
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