Microsoft Defender for Business vs. ThreatLocker

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

Threatlocker does exactly as it advertises. I would recommend it to anyone seeking a comprehensive solution for managing software approvals. It is also very easy to use with an online support team, or Cyberheros, as they call it, that is very quick and responsive. The preset programs are also a nice touch, making deployment easy.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• Application whitelisting.
• Unified audits of everything network & application.
• Clean and concise portal to manage the same.
• Dynamic ability to allow users to request more apps.
• Security and a sense of complete control.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• When running the Unified Audit, I like to use certain filters. I wish there as a way to save those filters, so I don't have to select them every time I do a Unified Audit.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

ThreaLocker has done its job and has prevented malware from executing. It has stopped an encryption process once already. It has kept a user from going to a bad website. He tried twice and was wondering why he was getting an error message from ThreatLocker and ESET both.

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

Technician and Analyst alike will love this tool as long as they learn to use it. They have fantastic study material that breaks everything down on it where to find settings and how to best manage the tool. End users are the only complaints we get only because they sometimes don't understand that installing a PDF convertor that is labeled as Free on the internet isn't always in their best interest.

There is rarely ever an outage. I have seen slowness in ThreatLocker service. But that is very rare too!

Incentivized

ThreatLocker is always available. The admin's console loads very fast and report runs almost instantly. It does not interfere with operating system.

Incentivized

You can email, call or do online chat with tech support. I love their online chat. They are quick and friendly. Also, if you need to show them something, you can give the chat technician permission from your Chat box to allow the tech access to your computer. They also can pull out your admin console on their side. They can look at your "Unified Audit" log and see the same thing that you can. They have a good KnowledgeBase that you can look for answers. They have what is called "ThreatLocker University" where you can go through tutorials and take tests.

Incentivized

The owners and co-founders work with you through Zoom Meetings. They walk you through how to use and setup ThreatLocker. They also have webinars. You also can go through ThreatLocker University online training.

Incentivized

Using ThreatLocker University online training is very easy and informative. You take online tests to see how well you learned the material. It is great!

Incentivized

ThreatLocker is a family ran business. The owners, co-founders work with you to ensure you are up and running as quickly as possible. They went to ensure your success with ThreatLocker.

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

Prior to buying ThreatLocker, we evaluated Tanium's whitelisting module. We felt that ThreatLocker's method of baselining existing applications and comparing them to known IoC's made for an easier implementation. To be fair, this was solely based on demonstrations by each vendor and not by actual PoC's. The implementation for ThreatLocker went smoothly and we have very few issues with the product that require support intervention. When support is needed, it is readily available via chat.

Incentivized

ThreatLocker is very easy to add new ThreatLocker agents on computers and servers. It is very easy to do. You can install an agent on a computer or server in about 2 minutes or less.

Incentivized

• Improved cybersecurity
• Learning curve
• Resource consumption

Incentivized

• Allowed us to deliver zero-trust at an affordable cost
• Can be managed with existing skillset
• Most cost effective application control for small businesses

Incentivized