No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 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 Iden...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (6th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st)
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 3.4%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Identity3.4%
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection2.2%
Other94.4%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

CM
Technology Coordinator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Helps detect threats faster and prioritize critical security tasks with increased visibility
The feature I value most about Microsoft Defender for Identity is the ability to see where people are attempting to log in from. Microsoft Defender for Identity helps me automate routine tasks and find alerts that I set up to receive, so it helps me get where I'm trying to go easier and faster. I can see where everything is at. Microsoft Defender for Identity helps me prioritize important tasks. If I get an alert for a user who downloaded an application that is not sanctioned, I normally go straight to that user's computer device to find the device name and the user. Now I can get to them much faster. Microsoft Defender for Identity saves me time overall. I can quantify the time saved by Microsoft Defender for Identity as maybe 25 minutes, or if expressed as a percentage, maybe 20 to 25%. Some of the learning curve and actually learning what these products do takes time to figure out. Microsoft Defender for Identity definitely helps decrease the time of detection and response.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber SecOps Principal at Dotcom Security
Provides end-to-end antivirus protection and has good stability
Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and device control. It can integrate with other Broadcom solutions, such as Symantec Messaging Gateway and Symantec DLP. If you want to send an email, it gets scanned through endpoint protection and DLP. We get all Symantec functionality in a single pane.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence."
"The integration into the Microsoft Defender ecosystem is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Identity."
"Auto-remediation is a valuable feature applied to Microsoft Defender for Identity, reducing the burden of investigating false positives."
"Defender for Identity has not affected the end-user experience."
"I recommend Microsoft Defender for Identity because it is easy to implement."
"It is easy to set up. Based on the number of devices you would like to set up, you can use scripts, Group Policy, etc. It takes five minutes to set up."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Identity at nine out of ten."
"It gives companies a lot of insights that they didn't have before and has increased the security posture significantly."
"They manage to solve detection quite nicely, with rather elaborate detection compared to other providers, and Symantec also provides a useful set of information linked to each of the attacked computers."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"It has certainly helped out our audit efforts because we each stay compliant in terms of various security standards."
"You don't have to buy a separate email security platform. You can enable that using their endpoint, and I like that. You don't have to have two agents running on the same box."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and device control."
"Overall, the product supports everything already feature-wise, because it has email protection, monitoring detection, network intrusion detection, and advanced threat protection."
"The stability is excellent."
"The incident management on the solution is very good. You get a lot of detailed information about an incident. You also get a lot of documentation in connection with the CVI or integration."
 

Cons

"When the data leaves the cloud, there are security issues."
"There is no option to remedy an issue directly from the console. If we see an alert, we can't fix it from the console. Instead, we must depend on other Microsoft products, such as MDE. That is a significant drawback. It simply works as a scanner, which can sometimes put enough load on the sensors. Immediate actions should be possible from the dashboard because. It can prevent issues from spreading further."
"Microsoft should look at what competing vendors like CrowdStrike and Broadcom are doing and incorporate those features into Sentinel and Defender. At the same time, I think the intelligence inside the product is improving fast. They should incorporate more zero-trust and hybrid trust approaches. They need to build up threat intelligence based on threats and methods used in attacks on other companies."
"Fixing the solution isn't very seamless."
"They should improve the automation for impossible travel detection. When connected to Wi-Fi and then to VPN, the system sometimes interprets the IP address change as impossible travel."
"We observe a lot of false positives. Sometimes, when we go for a coffee break, we lock our screens. Locking the screen has a separate Windows event ID and sometimes I see it is detected as a failed login."
"An area for improvement is the administrative interface. It's basic compared to other administrative centers. They could make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"The areas of Microsoft Defender for Identity that can be improved include its cost, which is quite expensive when integrated into Sentinel. Additionally, there is room for improvement in its integration with non-Microsoft applications and systems."
"It should be able to collect information if the agent is disabled."
"The endpoint protection looks old."
"The support has dropped down to a five out of ten."
"I think SonicWall and McAfee are better solutions."
"Solutions like CrowdStrike, ESET, and SentinelOne have really jumped ahead on behavioral and algorithm-based detection capabilities. Symantec is trying to catch up, but they still have some limitations of being an old-school AV protection program and adding AI and behavioral learning and detection algorithm."
"Symantec appliances need improvement. The whole appliance environment is a robust system and it needs a massive amount of storage space. If you have to increase or speed up the background storage it's a pretty complicated process. The scalability and sizing is critical, and if you do it wrong you run into issues pretty quickly."
"Entire threat protection is not available for the advanced features."
"An improvement could be made on the reporting because then it would be easier to collect information and submit it for compliance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You won't be able to change your tenants from where you deploy them. For example, if you select Canada, they will charge you based on Canadian pricing. If you are also in London, when you deploy in Canada, the pound is higher than Canadian dollars, but your platform resources are billable in Canadian dollars. Using your pounds to pay for any of these things will be cheaper. Or, if you deploy in London, they will charge you based on your local currency."
"Microsoft Defender for Identity comes as part of the Microsoft E5 licensing stack."
"Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."
"It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."
"The product is costly, and we had multiple discussions with accounting to receive a discounted rate. However, on the open market, the tool is expensive."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"The price is quite expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I really would have to sit down to think about how Microsoft Defender for Identity can be improved. I didn't take stock in what needs to be improved because I appreciated having the tools right the...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Identity include Conditional Access, checking risky users, remediating risky users, and user sign-ins. I can easily remediate or determine what the user...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I don't really use Microsoft Defender for Identity a lot because my new role doesn't allow me to take time to do so. I don't really use the threat intelligence feature of Microsoft Defender for Ide...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.