We performed a comparison between Fortinet Forticlient 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: Both solutions have a valuable set of features and are considered to have good pricing. Users seem to give Fortinet Forticlient slightly better ratings because its deployment is easier than that of Microsoft Defender For Endpoint.
"Exceptions are easy to create and the interface is easy to follow with a nice appearance."
"Additionally, when it comes to EDR, there are more tools available to assist with client work."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"The product detects and blocks threats and is more proactive than firewalls."
"It is very easy to set up. I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, with ten being very easy to set up."
"Fortinet has helped free up around 20 percent of our staff's time to help us out."
"The price is low and quite competitive with others."
"Ability to get forensics details and also memory exfiltration."
"It has a very easy-to-use interface. It has ease of management, and all the modules are there. SKUs are also easily identifiable. Whatever is required in the firewall is already there in it. It's very advanced, and analytics reporting is very good. They also have cloud reporting. You get all the services that are available for your device in the cloud. You just have to subscribe. It's very easy. There's a lot of demand for this solution because it's an all-in-one solution. The throughput is very high."
"The technical support from Fortinet and local vendors is good."
"FortiClient's most valuable features are that it's easy to install and connect and has OTP on email IDs and two-factor authentication."
"The VPN has proven to be quite useful."
"It is very simple to use. I've used some of the others in the past, such as Cisco AnyConnect, which was a nightmare. I've used a couple of others, but FortiClient is very simple to use."
"FortiClient's most valuable features are that it's fast and safe."
"It is very powerful."
"EMS central reporting with fabric connectivity to FortiGate and FortiAnalyser is great and has seamless integration which makes managing 3000 devices a breeze."
"The folders and files protection are its most valuable features. These have been valuable because of the increase in ransomware attacks. With these two features, I can ensure that no changes have been made to our system or endpoint folders and files without the user being aware."
"This is not an inventory solution, but it helps you take count of how many workstations you have, as well as what software is installed on each of them."
"User-friendly, offering safety and security."
"One feature I like the most is vulnerability management, which shows any vulnerable software or OS present in my environment. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides a complete overview and also recommends the steps to mitigate the vulnerabilities or threats. Most of the other antivirus or EDR solutions generally don't provide vulnerability management. It is an add-on that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides."
"Defender provides useful alerts and groups them. It sends an alert to your portal if it detects any malicious activity, and you can group multiple alerts to form an incident."
"The comprehensiveness of Microsoft threat-protection products is great... Today, Microsoft Sentinel by itself is a leading Gartner SIEM tool. It has advantages over competitors because of the ability to integrate with Microsoft solutions and automate continuous monitoring of Microsoft AD and Office 365 data."
"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 best part is that it is built into Windows, whether it is a server base or a desktop base, which gives more control over the operating system. Because Defender, the operating system, and the Office solution are by Microsoft, everything is working like hand-in-glove. Its administrative overhead is less because a desktop user has already got some experience of how to handle a Microsoft Defender notification or administer it."
"Detections could be improved."
"There's room for improvement in the quick response time and technical support for integration issues, especially when dealing with multiple vendors."
"I would like the solution to extend beyond endpoint protection and include other attack surfaces such as other network components."
"The solution is not stable."
"Making the portal mobile friendly would be helpful when I am out of office."
"Integration with Azure and SaaS provisioning tools could improve Fortinet FortiEDR."
"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."
"We've got one client where it was blocking the smartphones, and there's a way to set it up on Fortigate that's supposed to do that. However, it didn't work with them since they had a 2FA multi-factor."
"One area that could be improved is cost, but you've got to pay for what you get."
"The tool is expensive."
"The pricing of the solution should be less expensive."
"Working with Distribution sometimes comes at a cost due to a lack of knowledge of the current status of your licensing and products."
"I would like to see endpoint detection and response included."
"It would be extremely useful to have an automatic updating feature."
"It has a horrible performance. It is one of the most unstable VPNs I have ever used."
"More integration with different platforms is an area for improvement for this product, and should be included in its next release."
"I personally haven't experienced any pain points, but some of my coworkers feel that it isn't secure enough."
"Features like device inventory continue to lack essential workstation drill-downs showing the entire device information with the least effort."
"The solution has minimal customization options, especially compared to Mandiant, so we want to see more scope for customization. A single portal for customization would also be a welcome addition."
"We encountered some misbehavior between Microsoft Office Suite and Defender. We had issues of old macros being blocked and some stuff going around the usage of Win32 APIs. There is some improvement between the Office products and Defender, and there is a bunch of stuff that you can configure in your antivirus solutions, but you have several baselines, such as security baselines for Edge, security baselines for Defender, and security baselines for MDM. You have configuration profiles as well. So, there a lot of parts where we can configure our antivirus solution, and we're getting conflicting configurations. This is the major part with which we're struggling in this solution. We are having calls and calls with Microsoft for getting rid of all configuration conflicts that we have. That's really the part that needs to be improved."
"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."
"We would like to see more tools for managing on-premises security... Sometimes, we have the tools, like Defender, to manage security in the cloud, but because we are so focused on the cloud, we forget the fact that we need to be sure about the security of the on-premises environment, specifically Active Directory."
"The interface could be improved."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Fortinet FortiClient is ranked 16th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 85 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. Fortinet FortiClient is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiClient writes "Easy to set up and user-friendly with good support ". 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". Fortinet FortiClient is most compared with OpenVPN Access Server, Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, Ivanti Connect Secure and CrowdStrike Falcon, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete and Microsoft Intune. See our Fortinet FortiClient vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
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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.