We performed a comparison between Bitdefender GravityZone EDR 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.
Features: Bitdefender GravityZone EDR offers comprehensive detection capabilities and an advanced management interface. It is known for its easy setup, scalability, and reasonable pricing. Meanwhile, 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. The reviews suggest that Bitdefender GravityZone EDR can improve by adding a built-in firewall, optimizing deployment, and enhancing encryption. 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.
Service and Support: Opinions are divided about Bitdefender's customer service, with some users reporting prompt and helpful assistance and others experiencing responses and an overwhelming amount of emails. Microsoft customer service garnered mixed feedback. Some customers commend the fast response time and expertise of the support engineers, while others express dissatisfaction with slow replies and a lack of coordination among the support teams.
Ease of Deployment: Bitdefender GravityZone EDR's initial setup is generally considered simple and easy, taking a maximum of 20 minutes. However, it may become more complex with new updates or older computers. In contrast, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's setup is straightforward and not difficult, especially with preloaded installation on Windows 10. While it can be more complex for larger organizations, it is generally considered simple, particularly for smaller companies or those familiar with Microsoft environments.
Pricing: Bitdefender GravityZone EDR’s licensing is considered reasonable, and contract lengths are flexible. There may be additional charges for extra features or services. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers fair pricing as it is included with Windows or Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions, without any additional licensing costs. However, some users believe that Microsoft's pricing could be more affordable and mention complexities in their licensing models.
ROI: Bitdefender GravityZone EDR offers varied ROI based on different situations, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint delivers cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and heightened threat management.
Comparison Results: Our users prefer Bitdefender GravityZone EDR over Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. Bitdefender offers a comprehensive set of features, including a built-in firewall and a slick management console. The solution earns high marks for stability, scalability, and reasonable pricing. Some Microsoft Defender for Endpoint users say the solution is missing some features and needs improvements in central management. Bitdefender's customer service is also regarded as more responsive and helpful compared to Microsoft's support.
"It is stable and scalable."
"NGAV and EDR features are outstanding."
"We have FortiEDR installed on all our systems. This protects them from any threats."
"The main thing is that I feel safe. Because the processes that have been used to get a handle on the attackers are much better than other competitors"
"This is stable and scalable."
"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."
"The stability is very good."
"Forensics is a valuable feature of Fortinet FortiEDR."
"The solution is probably one of the top five, best security solutions on the market at the moment."
"The features that are most useful are the simplicity of deploying the package and the cryptosystem for managing all the situations on the computer."
"The tool alerts about lateral internet movements."
"The best feature for our customers is the ransomware feature. It is very fresh and powerful. Bitdefender also has a feature called Ransomware Vaccine. With this feature, when a file from the ransomware is encrypted Bitdefender can revert it back to the original file. It automatically decrypts the file and puts the ransom in quarantine."
"The Ultra is a valuable feature."
"It is stable."
"GravityZone can be controlled from the cloud."
"The advantage of the solution is that it has a console on the cloud and you can update the clients."
"Coming from an organization where the EDR wasn't strong, it has always been a case of basically searching through the information you already have and looking for something. It was basically trying to find the needle in a haystack. What the Defender platform does is that it reduces the size of the haystack, and it'll say that the needle is over here. Minutes matter, and it certainly zeros you in on the events that are concerning. It also simplifies the effort of trying to get some kind of correlation of behaviors or actions you see in the environment and confirming if something is benign or a threat."
"The threat hunting service is very useful for a security professional."
"It doesn't cause the slowness of the system, which is one of the reasons why I like it."
"Microsoft Defender can block some viruses or malware. So, it can protect my files. It can save files on Office 365 OneDrive. I use encryption for some files, then I can recover them from OneDrive."
"The fact that it's from Microsoft, you don't have many false positives, unlike products from other vendors might have."
"The most valuable aspect is information, specifically the automatic investigation of packages."
"The performance of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has been a valuable feature."
"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."
"We've had a lot of false positives; things incorrectly flagged that require manual configuration to allow. Even worse, after we allow a legitimate program, it sometimes gets flagged again after an update. This has caused a lot of extra work for my team."
"The only minor concern is occasional interference with desired programs."
"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."
"The SIEM could be improved."
"Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later."
"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 solution should address emerging threats like SQL injection."
"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."
"What's happening now in this field is artificial intelligence, the behavior part. That is now the trend in many products, including Bitdefender, and this is where the product needs improvement."
"Application Control should be available on the cloud."
"Other solutions are cheaper than GravityZone."
"Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra should include more advanced features than their competitors in the market for the auto-detection of viruses and threats within the environment."
"The graphical user interface for EDR could be improved."
"We find it's making the machines run slow."
"There was a bit of a problem deploying."
"Areas for improvement would be performance and pricing."
"With regards to the interface, a challenge I found was that there was not enough documentation on how to tune it. I had to read multiple sources on the internet to learn how to configure the tool appropriately."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is secure but when it comes to security all solutions could improve security."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should have more transparency. In the latest edition of Windows, Windows 11, it is a compulsory requirement to connect to a Microsoft account, which in turn has implications for Defender. This should be removed."
"It would be helpful if they included XDR features, on top of the EDR functionality."
"It is inexpensive but could be cheaper like anything else."
"With increase of cyber threats and cybersecurity issues, I would recommend that the product be developed like an AI product with more features which can counter any threat in the coming eras."
"It makes your Surface devices hot. It is resource-intensive. It strains your CPU, not more than other file scanners around, but it also does a lot more. When you are transmitting files or data, it is continuously scanning the traffic and analyzing it bit by bit to see what's going on, and that, of course, is costly in terms of CPU. It is CPU intensive, and if you are on battery, it drains your battery fast. That's the only drawback that it has."
"One thing that was lacking in Defender was web filtering. Its web filtering wasn't as comprehensive. Sophos was a little bit better than Defender for blocking URLs or installing programs."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Bitdefender GravityZone EDR is ranked 15th in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) with 54 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) with 182 reviews. Bitdefender GravityZone EDR is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Bitdefender GravityZone EDR writes "High-quality threat intelligence, including encryption and mobile device protection". 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". Bitdefender GravityZone EDR is most compared with SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon, Intercept X Endpoint, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business and Check Point Harmony Endpoint, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete and Fortinet FortiClient. See our Bitdefender GravityZone EDR vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
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