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Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Symantec Client Management Suite

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Defender for Business

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Defender for Business is an enterprise-grade endpoint security that is designed especially for businesses with up to 300 employees. It is used to deploy security across devices, and use automated built-in intelligence to rapidly protect, detect, and respond to threats.N/A

    Symantec Client Management Suite

    Score2.4 out of 10
    N/ASymantec Client Management Suite is designed to automate time-consuming and redundant tasks for deploying, managing, patching, and securing desktops and laptops so organizations can reduce the cost and effort of managing Windows, Mac, Linux, and virtual desktop environments.N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft Defender for BusinessSymantec Client Management Suite
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft Defender for BusinessSymantec Client Management Suite
    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
    Features
    Microsoft Defender for BusinessSymantec Client Management Suite
    Endpoint Security
    Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Microsoft Defender for Business and Symantec Client Management Suite
    Feature
    Microsoft Defender for Business
    8.3
    4 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Symantec Client Management Suite
    -
    Ratings
    Anti-Exploit Technology8.83 Ratings00 Ratings
    Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)8.64 Ratings00 Ratings
    Centralized Management8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Hybrid Deployment Support6.84 Ratings00 Ratings
    Infection Remediation8.34 Ratings00 Ratings
    Vulnerability Management8.64 Ratings00 Ratings
    Malware Detection9.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft Defender for BusinessSymantec Client Management Suite
    Small Businesses
    SentinelOne Singularity
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    BlackBerry Protect (CylancePROTECT)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    ESET PROTECT
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft Defender for BusinessSymantec Client Management Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    8.9
    (14 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft Defender for BusinessSymantec Client Management Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Business is well suited for small and medium businesses that are running on a smaller budget, with little to no IT department and require a quick and effective setup to manage and protect their endpoints. It can be deployed and managed very quickly, and the person doing it can have little to no experience as long as they follow directions.
    Incentivized
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    Broadcom
    Whenever you have computers that aren't easily accessible or you have a big site to cover (or multi location), Symantec Client Management Suite (CMS) is really great to manage all your computers, if it's for installation, software, licenses or even status. Setting up all you need from CMS can take some time, especially when you're in a multi-location site. We had to ask the Symantec engineers to help us a couple of times and set things up because even if we followed the documentation, it wasn't an easy task. But at least, the Symantec engineers are people that know what they do and they're really efficient at it.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Already integrated with Windows
    • Allows for folder and executable-specific exceptions when combined with Intune.
    • Incident response and analytics are fantastic.
    Incentivized
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    Broadcom
    • Patch Management: We are able to easily deploy patches to all our workstations and accurately report on compliance.
    • Software Delivery: We do a lot of software deployments to our end users and with CMS we can quickly create policies or tasks to perform these deliveries and get quick results on our success or failures.
    • Inventory: Ease of use to get reports of what workstations have what software installed, patch levels, or hardware specifications.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Confusion between the different Defender products
    • Ease of setup and configuration
    • Reporting and Alerts
    Incentivized
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    Broadcom
    • More transparency with the roadmap would be a welcome change. New and upcoming features are usually a surprise until a major Symantec Event takes place but little is heard about those features before and even after, in some cases, leading up to a release.
    • Documentation for some items is poor. Especially around the Workflow product. It was intended that the documentation for the elements in a workflow would be crowd-sourced, which is a good idea, but in order for that to happen, more people need to be using it and taking the time to draw up the documents.
    • Cost. Its always a big topic, especially in higher-ed, but Symantec could do more to lower its costs for some product lines in order to gain more acceptance and support. If that was done and more institutions could get their student workers to use the product, once they leave college and go into the "real-world" there is a possibility that they would start recommending Symantec products because of their use in College.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    So far we have found no alternative that would overall offer us more than we are getting from Microsoft Defender for Business!
    Incentivized
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    Broadcom
    So far so good - no major issues with that technology.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Business is a solid tool for smaller businesses looking to manage their endpoints and devices, while staying on budget. The setup is minimal compared to the full-blown InTune and EMS suite, and the product can be included in some Small Business SKUs that they may already have.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Broadcom
    Support at Symantec isn't that great. Client Management Suite isn't even listed on the Support Portal when trying to open a ticket. Your best bet for support is actually the user groups that Symantec hosts. The members of the groups are usually very responsive. With Broadcom buying Symantec, I've seen a huge jump in personnel leaving Symantec, so I'm assuming the support is just going to get worse. Recently for a simple question, I reached out to 5 people just to find out 4 of the 5 had left the company.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Business has better reporting and incident response. There is limited client rollout due to being integrated with Windows. Microsoft Defender for Business is much better at identifying asset risks and giving a broad security overview. Because we moved to Microsoft 365 to access the Office applications and Exchange online, Microsoft Defender for Business was essentially cost free to us. Where Microsoft Defender for Business falls short in comparison to Sophos is that it requires integration with Intune to enforce many of the physical controls that Sophos offers in their client.
    Incentivized
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    Broadcom
    Although there are other tools that can be utilized I don't believe those tools are as robust as Symantec Management Platform. The Symantec Management Platform was chosen because of the value it returns internally and for our customers. You can pull just about any data element from an endpoint and provide detailed reports or great graphs for the C-Level
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Improved cybersecurity
    • Learning curve
    • Resource consumption
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Broadcom
    • SMP allows us to centrally manage all of our endpoints with little to no end user interaction.
    • With the new P2P downloading our bandwidth constraints have been almost completely removed.
    • Cloud Enabled Management (CEM) allows our remote users to receive the same updates as in-network devices without the need for a VPN connection.
    Incentivized
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