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Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

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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 Offi...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Email Security (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (9th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
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 October 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 6.0%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.2%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Office 3656.0%
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection2.2%
Other91.8%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Emeka Ndulu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Improves threat visibility and response while reducing manual tasks and training users against phishing
I appreciate the attack simulation feature whereby I get to train users and educate them on how to identify phishing emails and spam emails, as well as the anti-spam protection. It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment. I get to detect it and respond, so the threat intelligence is very effective. Microsoft security solutions save my time. It saves money because once I protect my environment, I don't lose money. It has decreased my detection time and my time to respond.
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

"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is its ability to protect us from malware."
"The insights provided with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are helpful because it comes with the E5 license, and by default, we can use a lot of capabilities."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is data backups that we can provide through ticket requests."
"One of the best features of the tool is its capability to aggregate insights from different workloads, basically from the Office 365 and endpoints part."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 facilitates efficient management and updates through the cloud. We do not have to worry about incompatibilities. It just works."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is its spam filter."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 saves me time; it does save a lot of time, especially with the automation."
"Real-time threat analysis is quick and takes action on threats immediately."
"They have a very simple and easy implementation; they have been around for a long time, and they have been very easy to deploy, support, and manage."
"The most valuable feature is Click-time URL protection."
"Overall, the product supports everything already feature-wise, because it has email protection, monitoring detection, network intrusion detection, and advanced threat protection."
"The Application Control code and the easy integration are valuable features."
"Endpoint to network is a good feature, it can protect the line."
"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."
"Technical support is very responsive. You just have to open a ticket. They respond in a timely manner. Their response is good. I'm satisfied."
 

Cons

"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should improve the troubleshooting tools. It's unclear whether the device is blocked at the firewall level or at the device itself. The granularity needed for troubleshooting is currently lacking. From my perspective, Microsoft should address this issue to benefit many users who likely share the same sentiment."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 must improve the overall management style, including the GUI. It also needs to change the filters so that it is easy to whitelist and blacklist data."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are not properly published."
"Configuration at the mid-level could be improved for the support team."
"I think Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can be improved by creating more educational pieces about not just looking for malware."
"It's a strange situation where the infrastructure of the consumer or customer is behind some kind of firewall and they have always used some kind of customized proxy. In this situation, the ATP has a very tough time to pass the information to the cloud and back. To fix, it requires a more elaborate and complex configuration for that particular case."
"Scalability could be better."
"There are limits with respect to blocking files by hash value or blocking IP addresses, and these limits should be removed."
"The security features need to be improved."
"One area for improvement could be the pricing model."
"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."
"The support team that Symantec offers didn't know how to solve issues even though they referred to themselves as "engineers"."
"It should be able to collect information if the agent is disabled."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"The product is very expensive."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"The price is quite expensive."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My experience with pricing, setup, and licensing is that it's actually quite reasonable even on the licensing side as a standalone product. It's very competitive compared to what competitors are ch...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I think Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can be improved by creating more educational pieces about not just looking for malware. We are seeing a lot more malware-less emails that Defender for Offi...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 include email hygiene.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.