ESET PROTECT vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ESET PROTECT
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
ESET provides Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) capabilities via the ESET PROTECT Platform, covering Windows, Mac, Linux, and both Android and iOS operating systems, providing Mobile Device Management functionality. It comes with multi-tenant management, ensuring real-time visibility for both on-premises and off-premises endpoints as well as full reporting for ESET enterprise-grade solutions. ESET PROTECT management platform can be deployed on-premise or in-cloud. For organizations looking to…
$49.99
per year
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (formerly Microsoft Defender ATP) is a holistic, cloud delivered endpoint security solution that includes risk-based vulnerability management and assessment, attack surface reduction, behavioral based and cloud-powered next generation protection, endpoint detection and response (EDR), automatic investigation and remediation, managed hunting services, rich APIs, and unified security management.
$2.50
per user/per month
Pricing
ESET PROTECTMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Editions & Modules
Essential
$49.99
per year 1 device
Premium
$59.99
per year 1 device
Ultimate
$179.99
per year 5 devices
Academic
$2.50
per user/per month
Standalone
$5.20
per user/per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ESET PROTECTMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsESET offers are tailored to each customer’s needs. ESET takes pride in working with customers and partners to find the perfect solution for their security challenges at the right price. Contacting an ESET partner or sales representative ensures each solution is made-to-measure and precisely fits the size, complexity of IT environment and level of protection to match the customer’s business requirements. Pricing percentage is dependent on number of years and devices purchased.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ESET PROTECTMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Considered Both Products
ESET PROTECT
Chose ESET PROTECT
It was pre-existing when I came to this company so ESET is dug in deep and removing it would be a process. Defender was nice and is a solution I wouldn't mind moving to. My biggest concern is web protection due to the amount of password compromise request emails the user base …
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
Crowdstrike is the more feature complete product but licensing model and cost does not work well with the small business model. ESET PROTECT is considerably more complicated from a licensing perspective but once operational is a fine product.
Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
In my opinion, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is inferior to the competition. Combined with Huntress it is good (they are designed to integrate), but in my opinion, no need to use the paid version of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint when combining with Huntress, so not really …
Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
Microsoft Defender is more easy to install, upgrade and use.
Eset is annoyingly visible.
Features
ESET PROTECTMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Endpoint Security
Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
ESET PROTECT
8.9
19 Ratings
5% above category average
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
8.7
78 Ratings
3% above category average
Anti-Exploit Technology9.019 Ratings8.975 Ratings
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)9.318 Ratings9.277 Ratings
Centralized Management9.918 Ratings8.777 Ratings
Hybrid Deployment Support8.415 Ratings7.210 Ratings
Infection Remediation8.719 Ratings9.075 Ratings
Vulnerability Management8.118 Ratings8.772 Ratings
Malware Detection9.019 Ratings9.276 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ESET PROTECTMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Small Businesses
ThreatLocker
ThreatLocker
Score 9.4 out of 10
ThreatLocker
ThreatLocker
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
Score 9.1 out of 10
BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management
Score 10.0 out of 10
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ESET PROTECTMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(51 ratings)
8.9
(136 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
8.4
(10 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(5 ratings)
8.7
(11 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(5 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ESET PROTECTMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Likelihood to Recommend
ESET
Fits well in
our Medium sized organization, we still host a lot on prem with various Windows
/ Linux VM’s, ESET PROTECT supports all operating systems we currently use, Pricing is
very aggressive compared to its other EU security offerings.

The endpoint
is lightweight, we’ve never had any performance issue, it has many features for
the value and can also generate logs/reports for compliance.



The EDR
plugin may be overkill for a small business and requires extra IT resources to manage,
also there is currently no XDR capability if you need that in your business.
Read full review
Microsoft
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy to deployed across the entire organization. Having a cloud based solution with a single pane of glass to manage all assets is a real no-brainer. Being able to receive immediate alerts when suspicious activity occurs is extremely helpful in keeping risks at a minimum. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint management is also smart enough to not send several alerts when an attack could be hitting multiple targets within a certain time frame or when it's the same attack multiple times. However, be prepared to click through multiple pages all over the site to figure out what happened when an attack occurs.
Read full review
Pros
ESET
  • ESET provides comprehensive, transparent protection for my MacOS devices without interfering with the efficiency of my operating system.
  • It's easy to install, configure (default settings are great for just about everyone), and update.
  • ESET's customer communications, including a very detailed knowledge base online, make it clear I've chosen the right antivirus solution!
Read full review
Microsoft
  • One, it's crazy lightweight, so compared to some of the competitors that we also have used with our security services, it's really lightweight and so I don't have a lot of overhead on the system that it's running on.
  • It does really fantastic PowerShell integration.
Read full review
Cons
ESET
  • If the system administrator has functions such as pop-up notification and alert mail transmission, I believe that countermeasures can be taken faster
  • It often gets in the way of the network system.
  • Communication between PCs under the same network may be hindered, which may be an obstacle to verification.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • It would be good to continue to minimize the amount of resources needed during a scan
  • Provide more integration with Outlook to scan attachments with a notification that everything is good
  • Provide a Click to Fix option when listing issues or high-risk problems on systems
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
ESET
I'm giving it a 10, because I would totally have no reservations about staying on with eSet for another 3 years once our contract comes up for renewal. We are looking to transfer to a different product in January, however. This is due to a special pricing contract with the state of Ohio that made a normally much more expensive product very affordable and was cheaper than our coming eSet renewal cost. This is a very special case only available to government and educational organizations, but had that not been offered, we would have gladly stayed with eSet.
Read full review
Microsoft
Cost add-ons for Security features is nickel and diming the process to keep pace with cybercrime. Limited Education budgets require us to be more pro-active in finding cost-effective measures to protect our devices, staff and students. Defender is a strong, well-featured product that is pricing itself out of the education market
Read full review
Usability
ESET
Provide execllent security agains malware, ransomware, and phishing. Easy to use and monitoring multiple devices and managing security settings remotely. Software firewall ability to secure network traffic and blocking websites and application at software level its gives very easy to configure .Zero-day threats as some other security products is missing with more advanced machine learning and behavioral analysis capabilities.
Read full review
Microsoft
It offers multiple security features and integrates well with Microsoft ecosystems. A workflow for threat detection, investigation, automated remediation, and a centralized dashboard is an added advantage. This application is mainly designed for experienced users; new users may feel challenged.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
ESET
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint chugs along just fine no matter what we throw at it and what systems it's running on. It doesn't take up a lot of resources either, so that's welcomed.
Read full review
Performance
ESET
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy on memory and resources on clients.
Read full review
Support Rating
ESET
Excellent support from ESET and when we had questions regarding the initial deployment they were there. The questions we put forth were answered immediately with great detail. Any of the items we put forth, scenarios, were given a good solution from ESET to fit our needs. This company stands by their product and are happy to step up when needed.
Read full review
Microsoft
The first time I tried to onboard my macOS endpoints to MDE I struggled for quite a bit. I had to reach out to Microsoft's MDE support team. The tech was very helpful in walking me through the steps during a screen share session
Read full review
Implementation Rating
ESET
Do the full scan at the beginning and be prepared to wait until it is done. It will find things you did not know were there. You can leave on the Apple firewall as well as the ESET firewall. There have been no conflicts. Remember to remove emails from being backed up, so you do not have spam on your backup! This was the mistake I made.
Read full review
Microsoft
Deployment was handled by our team here and everything went pretty smoothly. We did have a few hiccups in our test group, but that only took a bit to get ironed out.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
ESET
Choosing ESET PROTECT rather than McAfee Security or other secuty softwares helps me more evaluate specific security requirements of the company. Considering the scalability of solution it provides, the ease of use of its interface, the level of support provided by the vendors, and the availability of reports makes it a top choice for me.
Read full review
Microsoft
Defender is far easier to deploy and manage than Sophos and tends to work without as many issues. The threat assessment portal provides an in-depth view of the organization's security posture, whereas Sophos only shows the patching status of the PCs. We did need Intune to get many of the control features (disabling USB drives) that Sophos offered out of the box.
Read full review
Scalability
ESET
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easily scaled from small orgs to giant enterprises.
Read full review
Return on Investment
ESET
  • ESET maintains the security of our machines, files, reports, etc., an invasion or infection could result in a catastrophe, loss of important data, expenses with specialized support, hours or days of work stopped until the solution is found, without ESET prevention we could have big expenses at any time.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Reduced incidents of security breaches lead to lower remediation costs and avoid potential financial losses and reputational damage.
  • Reduces the need for additional third-party security solutions and training, thereby lowering overall security management costs.
  • Increased efficiency and productivity of IT staff lead to better allocation of resources and cost savings.
  • Reduces the risk of fines and sanctions associated with non-compliance, ensuring business continuity and protecting revenue.
Read full review
ScreenShots

ESET PROTECT Screenshots

Screenshot of ESET PROTECT Dashboard.
Unified cybersecurity platform interface providing network visibility and control. Available as cloud or on-prem deployment.

Ensures real-time visibility for all endpoints as well as full reporting and security management for all OSes.Screenshot of ESET Endpoint Security.

Advanced multilayered protection for computers and smartphones powered by ESET LiveSense technology.Screenshot of ESET Server Security.
Provides real-time protection for the company’s data passing through all general servers, network file storage including OneDrive, and multi-purpose servers to ensure business continuity.Screenshot of ESET PROTECT - Reports. 
Meets reporting requirements and saves time with scheduled reporting and dozens of customizable templates.Screenshot of ESET Full Disk Encryption. 
An encryption managed natively by ESET remote management console. It increases the  organization's data security that meets compliance regulations.Screenshot of ESET LiveGuard Advanced. 
A cloud-based technology that uses scanning, machine learning, cloud sandboxing, and in-depth behavioral analysis to prevent targeted attacks as well as new or unknown threats, especially ransomware.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Screenshots

Screenshot of blocked activitiesScreenshot of Detects & respondsScreenshot of discovers vulnerabilityScreenshot of Eliminates blind spotsScreenshot of Risk management