We compared Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and VirusTotal based on users' reviews in six categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: 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. VirusTotal is highly praised for its extensive global malware information database.
Room for Improvement: 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. VirusTotal users want more automation capabilities and improvements in the solution’s look and feel.
Service and Support: 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. Users say that VirusTotal’s technical support is satisfactory, but customers would like faster case resolution.
Ease of Deployment: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's setup is straightforward. While it can be more complex for larger organizations, it is mostly considered simple, particularly for smaller companies or those familiar with Microsoft environments. The setup process for VirusTotal was relatively easy and can be completed in a few days.
Pricing: 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: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint delivers cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and heightened threat management. VirusTotal has a positive ROI.
Comparison Results: 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. VirusTotal is considered a cost-effective solution that's easy to set up. However, some users complained about slow response times from technical support.
"We found that because the endpoint devices are based on Microsoft Windows devices and Windows Defender is integrated with the foundation and the core layer, it makes it more integrated and more agile in terms of responding to any security threats or changes or development"
"Its real-time security is the most valuable."
"The ransomware and malware protection is the most valuable feature."
"I enjoy using the live response feature, which allows me to remotely access different endpoints and investigate malicious files, such as malware that people may have downloaded, and other related issues."
"This is a very go, proactive solution to threat protection using advanced analysis."
"You have endpoint security to keep your devices safe. That's the feature that we're interested in."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable."
"It's great for investigating what's happening on a machine. They show a whole bunch of machine timeline events that are related to a security incident. They have quite good details on the things related to threat and vulnerability management, such as any weakness that has been disclosed publicly, assets that are exposed, and if there is an exploit active in the wild for that vulnerability. It can provide you with all such information, which is cool."
"It can scan the dark web and find if an email ID has been compromised. This is another area that we have not explored yet."
"The most valuable feature is the worldwide malware information database."
"With VirusTotal, I can check for any hash, malware, file, domain, IP URL, or malicious URL, and Kaspersky stays clean."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender could be improved with features more like the McAfee ePO. It would be better if I had a console to get all the information for my endpoints. Maybe this is too much for it, but it would be better if it could handle those non-signature-based malicious codes or viruses."
"They should bring back the feature of a dedicated proxy device for communication to the cloud. As of now, all the agents are required to send the logs directly to the cloud. There should be a solution where you can put a proxy and all the logs are consolidated, like a forwarder."
"Notifications are always popping up — I hate that."
"Reporting could be improved. I would like to see how many security incidents occurred in the last six months, how many devices were highly exposed to security risks, and how many devices were actually compromised."
"A single dashboard would be a significant improvement."
"I have accounts for administrators and corporate employees, but I also have accounts for students. I can't split these types of accounts. I need a separate configuration for both... I need to research how I can get alerts for only the administrative machines."
"Right now, the solution provides some recommendations on the dashboard but we don't have any priorities. It's a mix of all the vulnerabilities and all the security recommendations. I would like to see some priority or categorization of high, medium, and low so that we can fix the high ones first."
"VirusTotal is hard to understand because you need to know Google Docs to create queries, and it doesn't have documentation for that."
"I would like to see an improved user interface and some automation."
"VirusTotal has predefined reports, but there is a lot of manual effort involved."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Anti-Malware Tools with 182 reviews while VirusTotal is ranked 8th in Anti-Malware Tools with 3 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0, while VirusTotal is rated 9.0. 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". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VirusTotal writes " Helps businesses collect threat data while keeping privacy in mind and apable of detecting, blocking, and removing viruses and malware". Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, whereas VirusTotal is most compared with Cuckoo Sandbox, MetaDefender, ANY.RUN, Recorded Future and ReversingLabs. See our Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. VirusTotal report.
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