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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Symantec Endpoint Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 30, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
184
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (6th)
Symantec Endpoint Security
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
141
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2024, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 12.7%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Endpoint Security is 4.6%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

TP
Oct 12, 2021
Effortless updating, full operating system integration, and secure
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can be used for protecting personal information and file in my organization The solution has saved us time by not having to install separate third-party antivirus solutions. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is beneficial because we are using Microsoft Windows and…
SS
Aug 30, 2022
Remediates infected file, isolates endpoint, and communicates between endpoint and SOC, all automatically
In a few cases, when we enable the IPS/IDS feature, there are performance-related issues on the end devices. If we run quite a few features of Symantec, especially the IPS/IDF, it consumes a lot of processing and memory capacity. We would like to enable all the features, but doing so should not have a direct impact on the performance of the system. If they can come up with an agent that consumes less memory, that would be a great enhancement. Also, Symantec is not being promoted from a marketing standpoint. I don't see any promotions for it. There are no road shows, marketing efforts, training, or anything organized by Symantec these days, at least in my region. The product is good, but if you're not marketing it people think "Okay, we haven't gotten any updates about the product." We need to have more road shows and promotions, and we need to have people trained in the technical aspects to gain market share.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The performance of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has been a valuable feature."
"The endpoint detection of threats is valuable. The initial detection of things like ransomware and viruses and being able to shut down machines immediately and stop a threat is valuable. We can stop a threat at a source versus allow it to propagate it across the network."
"The integration of Defender, Security Center, and the Microsoft compliance score, is the feature we use most to share the results with our clients and to create a roadmap together."
"We use Microsoft Defender for the antivirus."
"Real-time detection and cloud-based delivery of detections are highly efficient."
"The technical support from Microsoft is very good. We are part of the Microsoft Suite, and from being part of this we have consistent news regarding Microsoft Defender for Endpoint."
"Defender is integrated into the operating system. It's integrated with everything. You don't have to spend time analyzing what you have to do to be sure that the integration is okay between the security tool and all the other apps. This, from my point of view, is the main advantage."
"It performs well. The stability is seamless."
"The solution detects malware very well."
"I think the key thing for me, is interoperability, in that you can deploy it to Windows, Mac, and Linux. That's been a really important feature in the last two years. Now there's one management console to cover all three OSs."
"This product is valuable for ransomware protection, general malware protection, and network exploitation protection."
"Symantec Endpoint Security is easy to use, fast, and good for small and medium-sized businesses."
"Device control is most valuable. Symantec is providing all such features in the basic plan, whereas when we last checked, such a feature was not available in the basic plan of Malwarebytes."
"It just works. We have a console, and I can see it at a glance. I don't have any problems with it at all."
"Endpoint protection has improved our operations by protecting our servers from potential cyber threats."
"Some important features that are included are the built-in firewall and device control."
 

Cons

"The price, in general, could always be a little bit cheaper."
"There's a lot of manual effort involved to configure what we need."
"I personally haven't experienced any pain points, but some of my coworkers feel that it isn't secure enough."
"The scalability could be improved - I would rate it between a seven and an eight."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is not as robust, and you cannot customize it much, so that's a challenge."
"There are some areas in the proactive threats that are just overwhelming the SOC, so we've had to turn those off until we can figure out how to filter out the false positives."
"The dashboard customization could be improved."
"It is not very scalable from the eyes of an MSP because there is no dashboard that you can use to see all of your devices that have Windows Defender unless you have your own dashboard or an RMM tool to actually look at it. So, you might not get to know that a particular computer of a client is doing something, and it might have got a virus. That person might know that, but unless you set it up to actually send you the information, you won't get to know that. That's one of the things that is hard with Microsoft Defender. It is not made for the MSP world where you have one pane of glass to see all of your clients with Microsoft Defender on it unless your RMM tool already has that built-in and it can see the telemetry from Microsoft Defender."
"Multi-domain policy options for exceptions and global blocks."
"The biggest thing I would like to see is malware remediation, if there is some kind of outbreak. We'd like to see better remediation and better detection and response. It's pretty good at capturing things, but it doesn't stop everything, so better machine learning would be helpful."
"Must push to EXE files to the endpoints."
"I know they were just bought out by Broadcom and there have been some difficulties with Broadcom as far as getting license renewals, etc. Mostly, due to the fact that it's confusing, even for the vendor, people are turned off by it. The vendors are telling us that it can take weeks for them to get a renewal quote, nevermind the actual renewal."
"Sometimes, when we are creating a new policy, some of the clients are not being updated with the latest policy."
"Overall, the price could be reduced."
"The Centralized Management could be improved."
"Reporting in this solution needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The nice thing about Defender and Sentinel is that the cost is based on the data logs that you ingest from the Defender endpoints and data connectors. I don't have to buy a 25- or 50- or 1,000-user or enterprise license. I can buy one license at a time."
"I recently switched from education to private business, and all I can say is that private business licensing from Microsoft is not cheap until you hit certain quantities or scale. That does not mean that it is not comparable to other industries. It is similar pricing, but it is still crazy to me how much you pay for a client. I feel it is high, but it is in line with other vendors."
"It is an expensive solution. It would be nice if it could be included with the Microsoft Office package."
"I pay for it through the Windows Professional or Standard license. It is a one-time cost for me, and I use the same license."
"There is no license needed, the solution comes with Microsoft Windows."
"AV solutions are pretty expensive because they are necessary, not just for protection, but many businesses need them to comply with regulatory bodies and receive accreditation. We recently purchased an E5 license, which gives us access to the entire Microsoft suite. I would say the pricing is competitive; most tools of this kind are similarly priced. There are minor differences between the competitors, but they aren't spectacularly different. Defender for Endpoint makes sense because all our solutions are in the same place, paid for with a single license. The subscription price is around £50 per user per month, though it may have increased slightly."
"I'm not too familiar with costs as I'm an architect, though I know about online pricing, as I help two teams with online purchasing and procurement. Nowadays, everyone has an enterprise agreement, such as an E3 license, which we provide to our customers."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can be costly as a standalone solution."
"It provides a good solution at a good price."
"Licensing is per user. Therefore, it makes it easy to do licensing."
"Each annual client license is around 1200 or 1600 INR."
"We pay our licensing fees on a yearly basis, and everything is included in that price."
"We receive a discounted price for this solution because we are a non-profit organization."
"The pricing is good, very moderate, and the licensing is also good. It gives you more room to install a lot of endpoints and it even gives you the opportunity to install it on your mobile phone without any extra cost."
"Zero-day threat or advanced attacks should be part of the endpoint. The product should not require you to buy a separate license."
"Symantec is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
Which is better - Cortex XDR or Symantec End-User Endpoint Security?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
What do you like most about Symantec End-User Endpoint Security?
Symantec have everything – documentation, videos, data sheets.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Symantec EPP, Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP)
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Audio Visual Dynamics, Red Deer Advocate, Asia Pacific Telecom Co. Ltd., Kibbutz Ein Gedi, and AMETEK, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Symantec Endpoint Security and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
800,905 professionals have used our research since 2012.