We performed a comparison between Check Point Harmony Endpoint 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: Check Point Harmony has a slight edge in this comparison. According to its reviewers, its interface is friendlier than that of Defender for Endpoint.
"NGAV and EDR features are outstanding."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiEDR made our clients feel secure and more at ease, knowing that they had an EDR solution that would close the gap in their security posture."
"This is stable and scalable."
"Exceptions are easy to create and the interface is easy to follow with a nice appearance."
"The console is easy to read. I also like the scanning part and the ability to move assets from one to the other."
"Fortinet is very user-friendly for customers."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"It offers complete endpoint protection for all assets."
"Its ease of use is the most valuable feature. We had existing endpoints and it was an easy upgrade process. The interface board is also easy to use."
"Administratively, it's easy to control."
"It's pretty complete for preventing threats to endpoints. Its capabilities are great."
"The rollout and management of devices were very simple."
"With the prevention blade, Harmony scales higher than many other solutions."
"The most valuable features of the solution are web protection and threat prevention."
"The dashboard is user-friendly and easy to understand."
"I like the fact that it has the ransomware solution in there. I'm glad that the ransomware solution is built into it. That's probably the biggest thing that I see in Microsoft Defender."
"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."
"It's a very complete application. I have all the controls in one site. I can track emails, attacks, and threats, and I can research information. I really like this configuration because I have all the information in place."
"We are able to productively integrate with existing on-prem, hybrid, or cloud applications."
"Defender's analytics are much better than CrowdStrike's."
"I like that Defender is integrated and doesn't have a third-party payload trying to advertise subscription renewal."
"The scalability is good."
"The biggest benefit to Windows Defender is that it is built-in to the operating system by Microsoft."
"ZTNA can improve latency."
"FortiEDR could add a separate scanning dashboard. In incident management, we prefer to remove the endpoint system from the environment and scan the system. We typically use Symantec for that, but if we want to use FortiEDR for that, then we need a scanning tab to clarify things."
"The only minor concern is occasional interference with desired programs."
"We find the solution to be a bit expensive."
"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."
"I haven't seen the use of AI in the solution."
"Integration with Azure and SaaS provisioning tools could improve Fortinet FortiEDR."
"The SIEM could be improved."
"We need a higher maximum file size in the sandboxing feature."
"Check Point Harmony Endpoint's agent is a bit heavy."
"The response from the tool's support team, which starts with L1, is something my company doesn't find helpful, especially when compared to the other solutions that we use."
"The network monitoring features must be improved."
"The application control and URL filtering features are not very strong."
"Sometimes, with a lot of clients (1,000) the UI is a bit sluggish."
"It would be ideal if they had a migration tool of some sort."
"The only thing that our customers want, is lower prices."
"It would be nice to have a paid upgrade that would provide additional screening of the day-to-day activities."
"The management console is something that can be improved."
"I would like to see improvement from a management perspective. We have had to depend on Intune for certain tasks."
"Right now, there's a portal for Azure, portals for Microsoft Office, and portals for endpoints. It would be good to have only one portal and integrate everything."
"It needs to improve the cybersecurity for lateral movements. For example, when a hacker tries to enter a machine, they try to get the password by doing a lateral movement."
"Microsoft Defender in the basic form is not very useful for managing the security environment. The free version is not capable of covering the needs of centralized management, EDR, and behavioral analysis. If you don't have the commercial version, you can't have centralized management and set up the policies and other things. Each client is a standalone installation, which is not useful for security in an enterprise model."
"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."
"There are alternative solutions that offer a greater range of dashboard insights when compared to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point Harmony Endpoint is ranked 8th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 103 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. Check Point Harmony Endpoint is rated 8.8, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Check Point Harmony Endpoint writes "Excellent anti-ransomware protection, zero-day phishing protection, and web browsing filtering". 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". Check Point Harmony Endpoint is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, SentinelOne Singularity Complete and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon and Tanium. See our Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
See our list of best Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) vendors and best Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) vendors.
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