We performed a comparison between Fortinet Forticlient and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both solutions have a valuable set of features and are considered to have good pricing. Users seem to give Fortinet Forticlient slightly better ratings because its deployment is easier than that of Microsoft Defender For Endpoint.
"It notifies us if there's any suspicious file on any PC. If any execution or similar kind of thing is happening, it just alerts us. It doesn't only alert. It also blocks the execution until we allow it. We check whether the execution is legitimate or not, and then approve it or keep it blocked. This gives us a little bit of control over this mechanism. Fortinet FortiEDR is also very straightforward and easy to maintain."
"I like FortiClient EMS. FortiEDR has a lot of great features like lockdown mode, remote wipes, and encryption. I can set malware outbreak policies and controls for detecting abnormalities. You can also simulate phishing attacks."
"Additionally, when it comes to EDR, there are more tools available to assist with client work."
"The most valuable feature is the analysis, because of the beta structure."
"Having all monitoring, response, tracking, and mitigation tools in one dashboard provides our analysts and SOC team with a comprehensive view at a glance."
"The ease of deployment and configuration is valuable. It's very easy compared to other vendors like Sophos. Sophos' configuration is complex. Fortinet is a lot easier to understand. You don't need a lot of admin knowledge to do the configuration."
"Fortinet has helped free up around 20 percent of our staff's time to help us out."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"EMS central reporting with fabric connectivity to FortiGate and FortiAnalyser is great and has seamless integration which makes managing 3000 devices a breeze."
"It is very simple to use. I've used some of the others in the past, such as Cisco AnyConnect, which was a nightmare. I've used a couple of others, but FortiClient is very simple to use."
"It's easy to use, easy to deploy, and I have more visibility over my network that shows which users are connected to the firewalls, which users are connected to the network, and what they're accessing."
"Fortinet FortiClient offers a vulnerability test feature, allowing us to monitor end-user devices. This includes ensuring necessary updates, such as Windows updates, are not overlooked."
"The solution offers great stability."
"The technical support from Fortinet and local vendors is good."
"It is very easy and useful. A normal user with basic information can easily connect to any environment."
"This solution makes it easier to work from home."
"The stability keeps getting better and better."
"Technical support is good."
"The whole bundle of the product, which is similar to other Microsoft products, is valuable. Ten years ago, you had third-party stuff for different things. You had one solution for email archiving and another third-party one for something else. Nowadays, Microsoft Office covers all the stuff that was formerly covered by third-party solutions. It is the same with antivirus. The functionality is just basic. You have the scanning, and then you also have a kind of cloud-based protection and reporting about your environment. With Microsoft Security Center, you have a complete overview of your environment. You know the software inventory, and you have security recommendations. You can not only see that the antivirus is up to date; you can also see where are the vulnerabilities in your system. Microsoft Security Center tells you where you have old, deprecated software and what kind of CVEs are addressed. It's really cool stuff."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a robust platform."
"DFE organizational security posture has been a positive experience. We're a Microsoft house. It works. Once it's deployed and once it's configured, it works and our clients tend to be happy with it. I haven't really experienced anyone who has been so unsatisfied with the platform that they wanted to go a couple of different directions, that has never happened to me."
"It comes included with the Windows license."
"The best part is that it is built into Windows, whether it is a server base or a desktop base, which gives more control over the operating system. Because Defender, the operating system, and the Office solution are by Microsoft, everything is working like hand-in-glove. Its administrative overhead is less because a desktop user has already got some experience of how to handle a Microsoft Defender notification or administer it."
"I like Defender's reporting and logging features. The email alerts are also helpful. It's hard sometimes to sift through the email, especially if you're an IT firm managing hundreds if not thousands of endpoints, but we find email reporting useful. For example, last Tuesday, we learned of new vulnerabilities that were discovered as a result of the previous patches. The endpoints without those patches triggered alerts in Defender."
"Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later."
"The solution's installation from a central installation server could be improved because the engineers had a little bit of trouble getting it installed from a central location."
"Integration with Azure and SaaS provisioning tools could improve Fortinet FortiEDR."
"They can include the automation for the realtime updates. We have a network infrastructure with remote sites. Whenever they send updates, they are not automated. We have to go into the console and push those updates. I wish it was more automated. The update file is currently around 31 MB. It could be smaller."
"FortiEDR can be improved by providing more detailed reporting."
"To improve Fortinet, we need to see more features and technology areas at the endpoint level introduced."
"Everything with Fortinet having to do with their cloud services. They need to invest more in their internal infrastructure that they are running in the cloud. One of the things I find with their cloud environment compared to others' is that they go cheap on the equipment. So it causes some performance degradation."
"Cannot be used on mobile devices with a secure connection."
"With the lower-end licenses, it tends to kick you out after eight hours. There is a function where it automatically kicks you out after eight hours. They could improve that and not kick you out after eight hours. Other than that, it is already pretty good."
"The software inventory part is not yet up-to-date. It doesn't have a great interface, which is a disadvantage. I wish we could leverage it, but we don't use it at all because it's not that reliable."
"Fortinet FortiClient should improve its visibility of the consumption of traffic and end-user action, which is very low."
"The deployment status is not good in Mac devices and sometimes in Windows-based devices using GPO, like Active Directory, that are not on the local network."
"I would like for the next release to be more user-friendly for users to do not have as much of a technical background."
"Everybody else is doing AI, machine learning, self-healing, next-generation features. It needs more next-generation features. Everybody else is doing AI, machine learning, self-healing, next-generation features. It needs more next-generation features."
"Initially, the support was very poor. It is getting better, but they should continue to improve this."
"We've got one client where it was blocking the smartphones, and there's a way to set it up on Fortigate that's supposed to do that. However, it didn't work with them since they had a 2FA multi-factor."
"It would be helpful if they included XDR features, on top of the EDR functionality."
"The anti-ransomware features need to be improved upon."
"Phishing and Malware detection could be better."
"It would be nice to have a paid upgrade that would provide additional screening of the day-to-day activities."
"In terms of improvements for their technical support, a focus on enhancing response times could be beneficial."
"The frequency of the patching, and the frequency of the updates, are not included with the free version."
"I had some cases a while back and told an agent my issue. When I called the next day, I had to explain everything again to a different person, so I found it annoying to repeat myself all over."
"Lowering the price would be an improvement."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Fortinet FortiClient is ranked 15th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 86 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. Fortinet FortiClient is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiClient writes "Easy to set up and user-friendly with good support ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "Eliminates the need to look at multiple dashboards by automatically providing one XDR dashboard to show the security score of each subscription". Fortinet FortiClient is most compared with OpenVPN Access Server, Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, Ivanti Connect Secure and CrowdStrike Falcon, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon and Check Point Harmony Endpoint. See our Fortinet FortiClient vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
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