We performed a comparison between ESET Endpoint Security 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: ESET Endpoint Security ultimately won out in this comparison. Our reviewers agree that ESET Endpoint Security is easy to install and easy to use. In addition, it has excellent customer support.
"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."
"he solution is an anti-malware product that integrates well with other vendor products such as firewalls, SIEM, etc. It captures threat intelligence and gives you better visibility. The product also has sandboxing features."
"Additionally, when it comes to EDR, there are more tools available to assist with client work."
"It is a scalable solution...The initial setup of Fortinet FortiEDR was straightforward."
"Fortinet is very user-friendly for customers."
"The price is low and quite competitive with others."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the ability to customize it and to reduce its size. It lets you run in a very small window in terms of memory and resources on legacy cash registers."
"Fortinet FortiEDR's scalability is quite good, and you can add licenses to the solution."
"Advanced level endpoint firewall, which helps to block unwanted and malicious traffic."
"It can block certain web pages that may contain viruses or pose a threat to the computer."
"ESET has regular updates, and it gives me good feedback. It's not too onerous like some of the products I've used in the past."
"Primarily used to protect computers from viruses and ransomware."
"The overall security capability of the product is pretty reliable."
"The product is good and has a good interface."
"The most valuable feature of ESET Endpoint Security is that it is light on resources. It has a very low impact on the system. It uses low memory and the setup size is very low."
"Technical support has been very good. They are helpful and responsive."
"The virus scanning capability is excellent, and it feeds all the logs into the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, making them easy to search for."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is beneficial because we are using Microsoft Windows and all the core solutions are made by Microsoft, such as the authentic platform, operating system, and antivirus protection. It is a heterogeneous environment. We had to use third-party solutions before and update everything separately. For example, the policy for antivirus. With Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, when Microsoft Windows receives updates it will update with it. This is one main advantage of this solution."
"We have just started to implement it. It is useful for protection from malware and ransomware."
"Provides good vulnerability assessment."
"It can reach our applications and PC activities in the cloud."
"The primary advantage is that you don't need to install it. It's included in the Windows 10 delivery."
"I like the simplicity of the portal and the integration with Microsoft Intune. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy to use and implement."
"It performs well. The stability is seamless."
"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."
"The security should be strong for the cloud. Some applications are on-prem and some are on the cloud. Fortinet should also have strong security for the cloud. There should be more security for the cloud."
"The amount of usage, the number of details we get, or the number of options that can be tweaked is limited in comparison to that with other EDR solutions"
"We've encountered challenges during API deployment, occasionally resulting in unstable environments."
"Detections could be improved."
"I would like the solution to extend beyond endpoint protection and include other attack surfaces such as other network components."
"Making the portal mobile friendly would be helpful when I am out of office."
"The stability needs to be improved. There are bugs that you have to deal with."
"The interface is good. However, it could always be better. It could be more user-friendly."
"The solution can improve the modules, and it is lacking centralized management and visibility of the endpoints."
"Online security could still be improved in ESET Endpoint Antivirus because security is threatened by phishing."
"We'd like the solution to be a next generation antivirus with some sort of artificial intelligence or machine learning angle."
"They can improve ransomware protection, and there should be cloud sandboxing for Mac."
"If I were in an environment that required a large-scale deployment then I would choose another solution over ESET."
"Sometimes, ESET sends alerts within my own network that cause confusion. That is, it might warn about contamination, or that the VM has crashed, but it doesn't go further than that. It just shows me the alert and sometimes I am not sure what to do about it."
"In terms of improvements for their technical support, a focus on enhancing response times could be beneficial."
"From an audit point of view, our auditors would like to have more reports on how things are used, if things go wrong, and how they went wrong. For example, if something got a warning, "Why?" So, we would like more versatility for tracing and reporting. That would improve the product, as long as the user interface doesn't get bogged down."
"The central console needs improvement. Both McAfee and Symantec antivirus have dashboards. These integrate with a server and work on my antivirus or some other product. However, with Microsoft Defender, you use Microsoft Group Policy Object. Defender does not provide a central console. Therefore, if you implement Defender, then maybe use another tool for the central view."
"The documentation could be better. When they update their manuals, sometimes they refer to products by their old names, so it is a little confusing. For example, the documentation might still say "Advanced Threat Protection" instead of Defender for Endpoint."
"Auto recovery is the most important feature that we would need from this solution. For decryption, similar to Malwarebytes, there should be something to be able to recover the data up to the last normal status. Its ability to recover data to the last normal copy must not exceed 5 to 10 minutes."
"It's not easy to create special allowances for certain groups of users. It can be a little heavy-handed in some areas where Microsoft has decided to lock a feature out, meaning they make it hard to make an exception... One company we work with needed to use about 20 different thumb drives for about 20 users. To make that exception for them was very difficult. In fact, you can't really make an exception. But what you can do is allow them to use it and, while it will still alert, you can actually suppress those alerts."
"The management console is something that can be improved."
"Lacks some additional integration."
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ESET Endpoint Protection Platform is ranked 11th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 96 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. ESET Endpoint Protection Platform is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of ESET Endpoint Protection Platform writes "Easy to set up with good security and rapidly improving capabilities". 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 Endpoint Protection Platform is most compared with Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, Check Point Harmony Endpoint and Fortinet FortiClient, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon and Microsoft Intune. See our ESET Endpoint Protection Platform vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
See our list of best Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) vendors, best Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) vendors, and best Anti-Malware Tools vendors.
We monitor all Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.