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Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

 

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 (1st), Email Security (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (9th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
26th
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 August 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 6.4%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.0%, 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 3656.4%
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection2.0%
Other91.6%
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 feature I like the most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is that it typically runs in the background—you do not know it is there until you need to access it."
"The stability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is fantastic."
"The most valuable feature is protection against malicious links, fishing, and impersonation. You can train people to be aware of these threats, but they're not always careful. When they're using their phones between meetings, they click on a link, and it's game over."
"Technical support is very good. They are knowledgeable and respond quickly."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved my organization's security. It makes it easier to manage the infrastructure without the help of third-party applications."
"Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the individuals within our organization who are affected."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is data backups that we can provide through ticket requests."
"With Defender for Office 365, we have been able to increase the security posture across our organization."
"What I like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is its notification capability."
"The technical support services are 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."
"Overall, the product supports everything already feature-wise, because it has email protection, monitoring detection, network intrusion detection, and advanced threat protection."
"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."
"This is a good solution, and whatever our requirement is, all of the features are there."
"The Application Control code and the easy integration are valuable features."
"The stability is excellent."
 

Cons

"The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is not up to the mark in comparison with Wiz or Palo Alto."
"Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are not properly published."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"In the areas of improvement for Microsoft Defender for Office 365, the console is the biggest challenge for me."
"Its price should be improved. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"Specifically, within Microsoft Defender for Office 365, I want it to improve the DLP capabilities."
"We still see many false positives from time to time with Microsoft Defender for Office 365, so it would be good if we can reduce those false positives and provide better workflows for our end users, as sometimes they may not know what to do when they encounter a false positive."
"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."
"The administration interface needs a lot of improvement. It should be UI based, and simple. They need to improve it. It's pretty much not that friendly compared to what we were using as Bitdefender before. It's okay but is improving, actually."
"It also needs network-based threat protection for shared folders and files."
"There are some ‎features that would add value to this product. One of them would be a graphical presentation of threats that the system has encountered."
"The support team that Symantec offers didn't know how to solve issues even though they referred to themselves as "engineers"."
"Scalability could be better."
"The support for new OSs and older OSs could be a little tighter. They need to be more upfront about what protection services they're going to provide on new OSs. I haven't seen the Windows 11 version out yet. It is either already released in Beta, or the Beta will be released soon. There could be a little bit more advanced updates on what they're doing to help protect Windows 11 environments. They can let us know in advance so that we know it is going to be protected. We can't roll out the new OS without putting end-point protection on it. So, they should tell us what is their support model for that, and what are they doing to protect Windows 11. They're not telling me, and that's a criticism. The same issue is applicable to all the other antivirus tools. It is not just Symantec; all of them have this problem."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"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."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
"The price is quite expensive."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
 

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
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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: August 2026.
910,350 professionals have used our research since 2012.