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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Symantec Endpoint Security

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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

    Symantec Endpoint Security

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/ASymantec Endpoint Protection is the company's flagship antivirus / endpoint security product.

    $29.99

    per year 100-249 devices

    Pricing
    Microsoft Defender for EndpointSymantec Endpoint Security
    Editions & Modules
    Academic
    $2.50
    per user/per month
    Standalone
    $5.20
    per user/per month
    Endpoint Security, Initial Hybrid Subscription License With Support
    $29.99
    1 year 100-249 devices
    Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise, Initial Hybrid Subscription License with Support
    $34.99
    1 year 1-99 devices
    Endpoint Security, Initial Hybrid Subscription License With Support
    $90.99
    3 years 100-249 devices
    Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise, Initial Hybrid Subscription License with Support
    $99.99
    3 years 1-99 devices
    Symantec Endpoint Security Complete, Initial Hybrid Subscription License with Support
    $200
    3 years 1-99 devices
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft Defender for EndpointSymantec Endpoint Security
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft Defender for EndpointSymantec Endpoint Security
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    Enterprise Endpoint Protection: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is well suited for large organizations with numerous endpoints, such as desktops, laptops, and servers, as it provides centralized management and monitoring of security across the entire network. Microsoft …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    Mostly it runs smoothly on host without impacting performance as other AVs like Symantec's impacts performance issue of host. Also because it's still a good product overall price range. Can upgrade to EDR solution with not much difficulty & onboarding on tool is not that …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    We used to use Symantec's Endpoint Detection and Response Solution, and so that's actually what we replaced with Defender for Endpoint. So it's just lightyears ahead of that one. So personally, I've also used Webroot in the past for an antivirus solution and Kaspersky and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    As we are using 90% of Windows devices and laptops in our organisation we figured out that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a better solution for us as compared to above solutions mentioned. It is very easy and convenient to use this solution with Windows devices. The …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    As compared to some of the other products we have used in our organization over the years, Windows Defender has been a lot better at not using a lot of system resources when running on the clients. A lot of other commercial threat protection products on the market today, tend …
    Incentivized
    Broadcom
    Chose Symantec Endpoint Security
    In comparison with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Symantec Endpoint Security has, in my opinion, more scalable file inspection/spyware/antivirus settings. Plus it is more stable in a multi-OS user environment. But it also has numerous issues with itself and related Symantec …
    Incentivized
    Chose Symantec Endpoint Security
    Symantec Endpoint Protection really shines against its competitors when it comes to centralized management. It falls a little short when it comes to cloud deployments.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    157 Answers
    83%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    146 Answers
    91%
    Delivers good value for the price
    20 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    155 Answers
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    130 Answers
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    18 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    140 Answers
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    23 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft Defender for EndpointSymantec Endpoint Security
    Endpoint Security
    Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Symantec Endpoint Security
    Feature
    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
    8.7
    79 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Symantec Endpoint Security
    9.2
    37 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Anti-Exploit Technology9.075 Ratings9.031 Ratings
    Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)9.179 Ratings9.933 Ratings
    Centralized Management8.679 Ratings9.035 Ratings
    Hybrid Deployment Support7.110 Ratings9.026 Ratings
    Infection Remediation9.077 Ratings9.035 Ratings
    Vulnerability Management8.774 Ratings9.831 Ratings
    Malware Detection9.278 Ratings9.035 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft Defender for EndpointSymantec Endpoint Security
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    SentinelOne Singularity
    Score9 out of 10
    SentinelOne Singularity
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    ESET PROTECT
    Score8.8 out of 10
    ESET PROTECT
    Score8.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft Defender for EndpointSymantec Endpoint Security
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (169 ratings)
    9.0
    (64 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.4
    (10 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (40 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    1.0
    (11 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft Defender for EndpointSymantec Endpoint Security
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    If you have multiple endpoints in your environment, if you're looking to understand what your environment looks like, if you're trying to identify the health of your environment, or identify any risks or vulnerabilities in your environment pertaining to your endpoints and devices.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    Symantec Endpoint Security is a well-rounded product that provides a significant amount of functionality and covers many of our endpoint needs without needing to resort to multiple vendors that might clash in unpredictable ways when ultimately deployed to the endpoints in our estate. The default policies are adequate and tuning these requires some time as with all similar EDR products but the product is flexible enough to allow very granular whitelisting/blacklisting which is great. Low resource requirements are also fantastic and we've not had many complaints from developers who were getting slowed down when compiling complex code with other previous solutions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • The big thing for us is on endpoint, it kind of integrates with everything else that we already have because we use Microsoft completely. And so that helps us with being able to integrate, and send things over to Azure Sentinel as we need to as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    • The virus and spyware protection has worked well for us, catching several things and quarantining the items or cleaning them.
    • The virus definitions very rarely fail to update for the users, so I feel confident that my client machines are kept up to date.
    • I like the report I get daily telling me about threats found and action taken without having to login to the console to look it up myself.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • I'd say building out summaries and log reviews for analysts reviewing incidents. So, pivoting from the alerts themselves to actually getting the detail underneath. Trying to understand what caused an alert, where they went from there, et cetera, et cetera. And then trying to get into deeper log review to take that investigation further can be a pain point.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    • The system should have a better ability to auto repair, if an item is malfunctioning it should auto reinstall.
    • The cloud platform and the server do not talk well to each other and it would be great to get the same data on both platforms, this may be due to version though.
    • It seems the whitelisting on the cloud platform could use some work.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    Best of Breed. Symantec Endpoint Protection beats all other end point products I have used, tested and seen in presentation at this point in time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    Because it's hard to find things sometimes. I can find things now because I know where they are. But you have to work with it a little while to figure out how. I'd basically say it was a security tool designed by developers. So you have to get that mindset to find things. So a new hire, a new person in the SOC would have a difficult time. I know that's sitting in here, or that screen is in here somewhere. So it's gotten better.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    The rating reflects Symantec Endpoint Security's ability to balance enterprise grade security with user-friendly workflows or advanced configurations require extra effort. For most organizations, the streamlined management and robust automation justify the high score. Management GUI is old fashined and need to be improve. Older devices may experience slowdowns during full scans without careful configuration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    We've used it for years and the software is easy to use. The dashboard is easy to read, and you can easily figure out where to go to troubleshoot or deploy software. Symantec is there for emergencies like backup restoration or file retrieval. It's pretty low maintenance. Symantec is there when your IT infrastructure needs it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy on memory and resources on clients.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    Support is completely awful! You can never get anyone to help if you can even find a number to call. The support web portal is a joke and their response time if you're even able to submit a ticket is ridiculously slow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    Use a third party deployment tool and not the deployment option within the SEP Manager itself.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Particularly, we're evaluating Symantec Endpoint Protection, the commercial version. We've looked at eSet, a couple of the others, and it's much too heavy or difficult to manage, things like that. Ease of use, ease of integration. It's already there. It's super easy to update it with the regular OS updates and everything. So we can manage it whether we're using SCCM or Intune or Dato, it's very easy to deploy updates and manage things.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    Symantec Endpoint Security offers very similar features to the above products, they all do the same thing in terms of protecting your endpoints against cybersecurity threats. Installation wise the products all install from a central management system and report back to this for central reporting. Ultimately we choose Symantec as the reseller was able to offer additional incentives which made their pricing very competitive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easily scaled from small orgs to giant enterprises.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • I think the positive impact overall is that we do a lot of sitting in front of assessors- federal assessors, government assessors. And it really comes down to when the assessor has to think about another product that you're bringing in that's not Microsoft, it creates a lot of confusion, more paperwork, more explanation. But the positive impact is that they know it, everybody kind of knows Microsoft. And so when you tell them you have this endpoint for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, they're like, okay. The questions go away, and it makes the overhead a lot less during an assessment.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    • The ROI from deploying this has led to fewer security issues which reduces costs.
    • Keeping track of security issues and how the were remedied is easier.
    • Deskside support can work with end users easily if something is triggered and this allows us to not have to overstaff.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Screenshots

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