Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Symantec Endpoint Security

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

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

• Already integrated with Windows
• Allows for folder and executable-specific exceptions when combined with Intune.
• Incident response and analytics are fantastic.

Incentivized

• 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

• Confusion between the different Defender products
• Ease of setup and configuration
• Reporting and Alerts

Incentivized

• 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

So far we have found no alternative that would overall offer us more than we are getting from Microsoft Defender for Business!

Incentivized

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

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

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

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

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

Use a third party deployment tool and not the deployment option within the SEP Manager itself.

Incentivized

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

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

• Improved cybersecurity
• Learning curve
• Resource consumption

Incentivized

• 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