We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender For Endpoint and Sophos Intercept X based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Sophos Intercept X comes out on top. While the Microsoft Defender For Endpoint solution is good, it lacks in certain areas that Sophos Intercept X don’t have to worry about. Overall, users of Sophos Intercept X have mainly positive feedback on the product, agreeing that its set of features is excellent.
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the analysis, because of the beta structure."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"The solution was relatively easy to deploy."
"We have FortiEDR installed on all our systems. This protects them from any threats."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is scalable."
"All of the features are very important for anyone who is supporting a large number of computers."
"The initial setup is simple."
"I like the way it goes beyond the office space. Being a cloud-based solution makes it very easy to manage your endpoints within the office. In this time of COVID, you can also very effectively manage people who are working from home."
"Anti-virus captures malicious threats and an aggressive next generation firewall."
"The performance is good."
"The most valuable feature of Intercept X its ability to stay ahead of the infection. By the time the ransomware spreads to the next machine in line, the data has already been encrypted on that workstation. It didn't matter what the ransomware did because could go in and get it back."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Defender's analytics are much better than CrowdStrike's."
"The performance of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has been a valuable feature."
"This solution definitely increases our security posture. When you are reviewing your existing fleet or endpoints and based on the configuration that you put out of your Defender for Endpoint, you then receive a security score from Microsoft. Depending on what rules you have configured, what policies you have deployed, and what attack surface reduction rules that you have set up and deployed, it is almost gamifying information security in the sense that you are always trying to achieve a higher score. The more hardening you perform on your endpoints, the better score you receive. This generally tends to give you a better peace of mind, but also makes you secure at the same time."
"It's stable."
"This is a very go, proactive solution to threat protection using advanced analysis."
"The solution has an easy-to-use interface, is always updated, and is user-friendly."
"Within its class I think, it has a high and decent detection rate."
"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."
"ZTNA can improve latency."
"The dashboard isn't easy to access and manage."
"Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later."
"There's room for improvement in the quick response time and technical support for integration issues, especially when dealing with multiple vendors."
"The support needs improvement."
"The EDR console should have more extensive reporting. You shouldn't need to purchase FortiAnalyzer. It should be included in the EDR part. The security adviser cloud platform could be improved with more options for exclusive or intensive rules for devices."
"The SIEM could be improved."
"We've encountered challenges during API deployment, occasionally resulting in unstable environments."
"The majority of our systems are MacBooks and their solution release cycle is slow to endorsing or support the MacBook's latest OS or hardware platform. For example, when Sophos macOS Big Sur version 11 was released, it took them a while to support this version of OS. A similar situation occurred when the MacBook M1 hardware CPU was released. They have not fully supported the native M1 CPU to this day. They need to speed up the solutions release cycle."
"We are considering switching from this solution as a result of the closer integration needed between the firewall systems and the EDR."
"When we load Intercept X, it puts a load on the device. When it is scanning, it slows down the device. A system with basic specifications completely slows down till the scan is complete. They should improve this part."
"The pricing could be a bit lower to match the normal retail pricing."
"It's a challenge to do system maintenance work on a notebook. You always have to disable Sophos first."
"Sophos Intercept X could improve on its setup process. They could make it easier to have a baseline set up for the system, or at least provide more understanding of what the baseline is when you first install it. This could be a matter of lack of training on my part, but it's difficult to receive training on solutions that are not Cisco. Cisco is the only vendor with classes or courses."
"This solution is not in the high ratings on many of the top review sites. This solution has to be near the top for me to continue using it."
"There is some issue with the reporting and refreshing information on resources that have been eliminated."
"I would like to see better integration with their other security products to give better visibility from a higher level."
"Some of the integrations that Defender should include involve the use of the web app."
"The interface isn't necessarily intuitive to a nontechnical person. You can get stuck in the little endpoint security portal. Sometimes, if you uninstall a competitive product, the end user doesn't always know if it's running or if they're protected even though it's silently running. There could be a notification, widget, or something that's resident on the screen for at least a bit, especially if you're doing remote support. You want to talk them through it, but sometimes, we're not allowed to look at the PCs we support."
"I would like to have a dashboard that shows an overview of the results for the enterprise."
"Its user interface (UI) can be improved. Currently, in the console, you have to dig down for certain things. They've got many different layers to get to things instead of having it all on the surface. You have to go three folds lower to get to specific functionality or click a particular option. It would be good if we can manage the console through menus and instead of three clicks, we can do things in one click. They need to change the UI and work on it in terms of a better user experience."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration."
"They should come up with pre-built inner workflows."
"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."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Intercept X Endpoint is ranked 7th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 101 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. Intercept X Endpoint is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Intercept X Endpoint writes "A standard offering with good threat analysis but reduces machine performance". 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". Intercept X Endpoint is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, Fortinet FortiClient and Seqrite Endpoint Security, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet FortiClient. See our Intercept X 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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