We compared ESET PROTECT Enterprise and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint based on our users' reviews in six categories. We reviewed all of the data, and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: ESET PROTECT Enterprise is praised for its performance and intuitive, powerful management interface, with dynamic folders and group capabilities. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint excels in file protection, encryption, and ransomware defense. It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft security products. Users appreciate its user-friendly interface and scalability.
Room for Improvement: ESET PROTECT Enterprise users have suggested that file downloads should be enabled in ESET File Security. They also want more automation and better dashboard reporting. Users say Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should improve its central console and auto-recovery feature. Users also requested better reporting capabilities and integration with third-party platforms.
Ease of Deployment: ESET PROTECT Enterprise is generally considered easy to set up, but some users struggled with proxy configuration. On-prem setups take longer and require additional configuration, but cloud setups are problem-free. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's setup is straightforward. While it can be more complex for larger organizations, it is generally considered simple, particularly for smaller companies or those familiar with Microsoft environments.
Service and Support: Customers have had positive experiences with ESET’s customer service, rating it highly. Microsoft customer service garnered mixed feedback. Some praised the fast response times and expertise of the support engineers, while others were dissatisfied with slow replies and a lack of coordination among the support teams.
Pricing: ESET PROTECT Enterprise offers low licensing costs. Users find its pricing reasonable. Reviewers say Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is fairly priced, noting that it is typically included for free with Windows or Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions. However, some users believe that Microsoft's pricing could be more affordable, and others noted that their licensing models can be complex.
ROI: Users said that ESET PROTECT Enterprise delivered a positive ROI. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint delivers cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and heightened threat management.
Comparison Results: ESET PROTECT Enterprise is an affordable solution that is highly regarded for its impressive performance, resource efficiency, and hassle-free setup. At the same time, users say ESET PROTECT Enterprise could enhance its file downloading capability and automation. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers sophisticated protection against ransomware, easy deployment, and smooth integration with Microsoft solutions. However, Microsoft’s customer support has received middling reviews, and users would like better compatibility with third-party solutions.
"ESET PROTECT Enterprise is reliable."
"It's helped us with restrictions and knowing which users we can provide permissions to and which users we need to restrict."
"The solution doesn't have high memory usage."
"The most valuable feature of ESET Protect is the security while accessing any transaction, such as online banking systems. When I access a banking website a new browser opens which is more secure, which I find very useful."
"ESET is better in some ways than other vendors because it fulfills many areas where we'd otherwise have to use different products."
"The product enabled Zero-Day Protection for our environment. We never encountered any issues regarding threats."
"The solution offers a lot of configuration capabilities."
"The most valuable features of ESET File Security are the performance and it doesn't take too many resources."
"The EDR feature is most valuable."
"The solution can scale as needed."
"The most valuable feature is ransomware protection, which can detect malicious activity from IPs or a malicious payload in DLLs, or other things that can corrupt the system."
"It's pretty easy to scale."
"The most valuable aspect lies in its automation capabilities, particularly within security automation."
"It is stable and easy to use. Everything is okay, and there are no performance issues."
"The most valuable features are the Windows Firewall and the regular virus definition updates. These features are very helpful and have helped to improve our security."
"Defender is stable, I haven't had any problems with viruses when using it, and it's easy to update."
"The solution can be quite technical and therefore is challenging for new users."
"ESET Protect could improve the performance. The performance of the home computers and laptops becomes slow due to their heavy software load. It would be a benefit to make a lighter version of the software which does not have any impact on the performance of the computer's hardware."
"In terms of management accounts, there's a lot of manuals that seem to be mixed up. Sometimes, it's a little bit confusing."
"I would like to see more in managing mobile devices in an on-premise solution. The latest news I've heard is that ESET drops mobile management module development for the on-prem version. It's moving to the cloud. Like in endpoint client protection, I would also like to see more of the vulnerability management features and additional app control functionality in ESET Protect."
"The tool is complex and expensive."
"The availability and sustainability could also be improved."
"Sometimes, the connection to the machine requires troubleshooting."
"I would like to see more features on the reporting side of things."
"The biggest issue I had with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint was the antivirus and ransomware. I wanted central visibility over all the machines that we operate."
"There are some areas in the proactive threats that are just overwhelming the SOC, so we've had to turn those off until we can figure out how to filter out the false positives."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should include better automation that will make it faster to detect the latest threats happening across the world."
"They can improve it on the online protection front since people nowadays are moving online and working from home."
"In terms of improvement, they update the platform it seems quite a bit. Every month something is in a new spot or something changed somewhere. There should be less of that."
"With the XDR dashboard, when you're doing an investigation and you're drilling down to obtain further details it tends to open many different tabs that take you away from your main tabs. You can end up having 10 tabs open for one investigation. This is another area for improvement because you can end up getting lost in the multiple tabs. Therefore, the central console can be improved so that it does not take you to several different pages for each investigation."
"I would like Microsoft to have some kind of direct integration for USB controls. They have GPO and other controls to control the access of the USB drives on devices, but if there is something that can be directly implemented into the portal, it would be good. There should be a way to control via a cloud portal or something like that in a dynamic way. USB control for data exfiltration would be a good feature to implement. Currently, there are ways to do it, but it involves too many different things. You have to implement it via GPOs and other stuff, and then you move or copy those big files via Defender ATP. If there is a simple way of implementing those features, it would be great."
"The second major area for improvement involves enhanced capabilities for different operating systems or platforms. That is, even though we have coverage for different operating systems or platforms such as Linux, we don't get all of the controls and enhanced capabilities that are available with Windows devices."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
ESET PROTECT Enterprise is ranked 14th in Anti-Malware Tools with 11 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Anti-Malware Tools with 182 reviews. ESET PROTECT Enterprise is rated 9.0, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of ESET PROTECT Enterprise writes "Constantly improving their online resources to make it easier for new users to work with it". 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". ESET PROTECT Enterprise is most compared with ESET Endpoint Protection Platform, Wazuh, Avira Antivirus, Cybereason Next-Generation Antivirus and F-Secure Total, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. See our ESET PROTECT Enterprise vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
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