We compared Symantec Endpoint Security and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint based on our users' reviews across several parameters.
Symantec Endpoint Security is praised for its robust protection, advanced threat detection, and comprehensive coverage, but users suggest improvements in integration, interface, scanning speed, and resource utilization. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint receives high ratings for its security measures, integration, interface, and customer support, but users note the need for enhancements in system performance, user interface, and threat detection capabilities. Pricing for both products is deemed justified, with positive ROI reported by users.
Features: Symantec Endpoint Security stands out for its advanced threat detection and comprehensive security functionalities. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is valued for its seamless integration with other Microsoft products, efficient threat detection, and user-friendly interface.
Pricing and ROI: Symantec Endpoint Security's setup cost is justified by its strong features, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers competitive pricing with a reasonable setup cost. Symantec's licensing is flexible, while Microsoft's process is user-friendly. Symantec Endpoint Security users praised its positive ROI, citing good value, cyber threat prevention, and time/resource savings. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint also delivers strong ROI, with users reporting valuable outcomes.
Room for Improvement: Symantec Endpoint Security has room for improvement in integration with security tools, interface usability, scanning speed, and resource utilization. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could enhance system performance, user interface, threat detection, scanning efficiency, and advanced threat prevention.
Deployment and customer support: Users find that setting up Symantec Endpoint Security takes longer than setting up Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. Some users of Microsoft Defender reported varying durations, with some needing three months for deployment and a week for setup, while others required only a week for both. Symantec Endpoint Security offers responsive and efficient customer support, praised for prompt solutions to technical issues. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is highly praised for its knowledgeable support team and effective assistance.
The summary above is based on 208 interviews we conducted recently with Symantec Endpoint Security and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"Fortinet is very user-friendly for customers."
"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."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"This is stable and scalable."
"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."
"We have FortiEDR installed on all our systems. This protects them from any threats."
"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."
"It is a straightforward setup."
"The scalability is good."
"The EDR feature is most valuable."
"In my opinion, the most valuable aspects are the reporting analytics and integration with Sentinel. Defender does an excellent job of correlating the different entities that comprise threat analysis, analytics data, and log analytics. It helps to piece together investigations into any exploit or malicious activity within a specific tenant. AI and analytics tools are probably the most valuable components."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is different from other security tools because we can configure it to use multiple types of scanning or archiving."
"The fact that it's from Microsoft, you don't have many false positives, unlike products from other vendors might have."
"The solution can scale as needed."
"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."
"The performance of Symantec End-User Endpoint Security is very good. It does not slow down the computer like other solutions."
"It's good for large organizations. It's able to handle a lot of users."
"The solution, especially in older versions, is quite stable."
"Its response time is the most valuable. It is very quick."
"Endpoint protection has improved our operations by protecting our servers from potential cyber threats."
"The most useful features are the antivirus, anti-spyware, and the firewall feature. It also provides application control and Host Integrity, which is a very unique feature."
"The installation was very easy."
"Easy to use solution."
"Integration with Azure and SaaS provisioning tools could improve Fortinet FortiEDR."
"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."
"To improve Fortinet, we need to see more features and technology areas at the endpoint level introduced."
"The dashboard isn't easy to access and manage."
"Cannot be used on mobile devices with a secure connection."
"Making the portal mobile friendly would be helpful when I am out of office."
"We'd like to see more one-to-one product presentations for the distribution channels."
"I think cloud security and SASE are areas of concern in the product where improvements are required. The tool's cloud version has to be improved in terms of the security it offers."
"Cortex... has good investigation capabilities, out-of-the-box, in case there is an event that you'd like to investigate. It's quite convenient. Microsoft has those capabilities as well, but you need a bit more training on the product to get the basic information that you can get out-of-the-box with Cortex."
"Updates are not coming out of preview quickly enough and it is holding back on the development of the product."
"The GUI is very complex and could be more user friendly."
"I wish they would extend the use of the Security Central portal, even for the free option of Defender. Because, as companies grow, it is labor intensive to manage the AV and detection part of it. For companies already subscribed to Office 365, I think this would be a good enhancement."
"A concern is ransomware, whether people can penetrate and encrypt my data or steal my credit card/banking information."
"We would like more customization."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by adding more security features."
"Threat intelligence has the potential for improvement, particularly by integrating more sources."
"More control features can be added, and its performance can also be better. Sometimes, the performance is not good when we access the cloud console. Moving to each tab is slow. The dashboard can be a little bit user-friendly. For some users, it is a bit difficult. If someone is a little bit familiar with it, then it is fine. Otherwise, it is hard to find policies in Symantec."
"The stability was not the best. There were times when antivirus updates broke it. It wasn't necessarily self-updating - at least, not in terms of the virus signatures. It updated in terms of the executable files. Therefore, when Windows updates would come out, they often couldn't be installed, or the computer would hang due to the fact that the updates weren't compatible with the antivirus."
"The Symantec Endpoint Manager is very difficult to use and extremely old."
"It would be interesting if Symantec Endpoint protection could also manage Windows Defender. If they were to add a feature, it would be nice if you could see the Symantec client and the Windows Defender client in case you choose to deploy both."
"It needs to die. In my opinion, Symantec was a really great security company, 10, 15 years ago. They went out, they bought all the great tools and then they never did anything with them. So they've just fallen behind and there's nothing that's going to work now to bring them back up the date that's going to regain user confidence."
"The solution could improve by adding encryption. If it had encryption along with antivirus it would be better."
"The platform itself can be improved as there's no way to track how infections get into the organization."
"Maybe Symantec Endpoint Security could amend their pricing structure, but they always offer a good product."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews while Symantec Endpoint Security is ranked 5th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 139 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0, while Symantec Endpoint Security is rated 7.6. 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". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Symantec Endpoint Security writes "The solution has given us visibility into compliance within our whole system and helped us ensure everything is updated". Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Intercept X Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet FortiClient, whereas Symantec Endpoint Security is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, Trend Micro Deep Security and Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business. See our Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Symantec Endpoint Security report.
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