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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

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 Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
WithSecure Elements Endpoin...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
48th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 10.1%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

John Rallo - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers excellent visibility into vulnerabilities and the attack surface itself
Attack surface reduction and limiting attack surface vectors are valuable features. It's helpful to isolate specific devices and get super granular with the features they offer. The visibility into the attack surface is good. It gets highly granular. I don't work on that side, but the people who do tell me they get more visibility.
Mark Feldman - PeerSpot reviewer
Central console streamlines patch monitoring and device management effortlessly
WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection ( /products/withsecure-elements-endpoint-protection-reviews ) is good and easy to set up. I provide an installation file for every client through my domain controller and GPO, and it works properly. We have faced no incidents with viruses or network breaches, and it's easy to monitor patches. I can use remote desktop from the central console. The solution also saves my time because, being the only one handling it, I can monitor all devices easily.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The solution has an easy-to-use interface, is always updated, and is user-friendly."
"In my opinion, the most valuable aspects are the reporting analytics and integration with Sentinel. Defender does an excellent job of correlating the different entities that comprise threat analysis, analytics data, and log analytics. It helps to piece together investigations into any exploit or malicious activity within a specific tenant. AI and analytics tools are probably the most valuable components."
"One of the main features is the solution is very light on resources and we do not have any problems with it."
"We had certain compliance and usage issues. For example, our company wanted to go with CIS, but we didn't have a proper way of measuring whether the endpoints have the right standards in place or whether they were compliant with CIS. Microsoft Defender was like a one-stop for most things because it gave us the vulnerability and patching scores so that our vulnerability management teams can focus on covering up the vulnerabilities and the patching team can check the vulnerable versions and deploy the right versions."
"It's a very solid security system, and the advanced hunting and everything really lets you dive deep into things."
"Ensures that I'm working with a product that gets updated regularly without me having to remember to do it. Since it's a Microsoft product, I'm confident that it requires a low use of system resources. The benefit of that being that my computer isn't constantly being drained."
"It captures data through machine learning, which is built-in on the back-end. It also provides built-in analytics and a threat intelligence feature. It is a one-stop solution that doesn't require an antivirus because it comes prebuilt into Windows 10."
"Both incoming and outgoing traffic is protected."
"The notifications and patch management features are valuable."
"We use the product for detecting network vulnerabilities and for software update purposes."
"F-Secure is useful for keeping user machines up-to-date by pushing out security and critical updates."
"The most valuable features of WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection are the clear useful portal and overall company protection."
"There is a layer of security to prevent a malicious agent (malware) from interrupting or stopping services, deleting or modifying registry entries or even stopping the antivirus from acting, ensuring that there will be no interruption of protection."
"On the cloud management page, the solution scales up very highly."
"WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection is good and easy to set up."
 

Cons

"We encountered some misbehavior between Microsoft Office Suite and Defender. We had issues of old macros being blocked and some stuff going around the usage of Win32 APIs. There is some improvement between the Office products and Defender, and there is a bunch of stuff that you can configure in your antivirus solutions, but you have several baselines, such as security baselines for Edge, security baselines for Defender, and security baselines for MDM. You have configuration profiles as well. So, there a lot of parts where we can configure our antivirus solution, and we're getting conflicting configurations. This is the major part with which we're struggling in this solution. We are having calls and calls with Microsoft for getting rid of all configuration conflicts that we have. That's really the part that needs to be improved."
"Microsoft Windows Defender doesn't have a game mode."
"Sometimes, there are difficulties in downloading a file considered as malicious."
"Additional security would be beneficial."
"I would like Microsoft to have some kind of direct integration for USB controls. They have GPO and other controls to control the access of the USB drives on devices, but if there is something that can be directly implemented into the portal, it would be good. There should be a way to control via a cloud portal or something like that in a dynamic way. USB control for data exfiltration would be a good feature to implement. Currently, there are ways to do it, but it involves too many different things. You have to implement it via GPOs and other stuff, and then you move or copy those big files via Defender ATP. If there is a simple way of implementing those features, it would be great."
"The reporting in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should improve. The solution has limited features."
"There is a need for improvement in reducing false positives."
"It could be easier when it comes to managing exceptions."
"There is no technical support available in the Middle East."
"There could be a dedicated security partner with essential knowledge."
"The solution could improve by having more real-time responses. For example, when a license gets removed from a computer it does not update the records of the change. Additionally, when I installed Microsoft Windows Defender I was not able to send licenses through email to our tenants. The integration with other solutions could improve."
"But the biggest one for us is patch management because this has been our top priority when looking at alternatives. Every solution needs to have patch management, if that's possible. It would cut costs on our side if that feature were included, so we don't need to pay for two separate pieces of software."
"One problem is that the solution takes too much RAM from the client."
"The program and cloud service management is in English. It's not a problem for me, however, it might be for users who don't speak English or use it regularly."
"I would like the part of Hash Analysis by external sources to be improved."
"Resource consumption is suboptimal and could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is not a license required for this particular solution."
"I don't know the standalone costs. It is my understanding that the M365 E5 is $56 a month or something close to that pricing. That would be for the full suite. Just Defender might be $8 a month. I can't say for sure."
"Its price at the moment is very good because you get a lot of value for your money, especially with the subscriptions. If you have the E1, E3, or E5 enterprise subscription, you pay per month per user, and you get almost an infinite number of solutions. If you compare the price to the number of solutions that you get, it is a very good deal."
"Buying individual point products would've cost us a lot more money than one integrated solution that also capitalizes on Teams Voice and things of that nature. Given our size, buying individual products would have easily cost us a million dollars."
"The pricing is competitive."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender ATP is expensive."
"The solution is free and comes with Windows."
"The product has average pricing."
"The price is comparable."
"If you purchase licenses in bulk the price of the licenses can decrease."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee of about €20 per computer."
"The cost of the solution depends on the size of the company and where the licenses are being ordered from."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 ...
What do you like most about F-Secure Protection Service for Business?
The notifications and patch management features are valuable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F-Secure Protection Service for Business?
The pricing is scalable. We can purchase more licenses if needed. It's a more cost-effective solution compared to Darktrace, which requires a special device purchase.
What needs improvement with F-Secure Protection Service for Business?
One problem is that the solution takes too much RAM from the client. It would help if it used less RAM in future versions.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
F-Secure Elements Endpoint Protection, F-Secure Protection Service for Business
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.