Bitdefender GravityZone EDR Reviews

We are a distributor for Bitdefender in our country and GravityZone is one of the security products that we have experience with.

Bitdefender have improve our Cloud technology knowledge , as for the last 5 years we didn't see any progress in that field from any other vendor here in Egypt.

The most valuable feature is the security( Hyper detect, Sandbox and EDR ). because I think protection is our main target .

I would like to see the capability for remote installation of third party applications added( Like installing WinRar MS Office etc..) , and Firewall for servers.

We have been working with Bitdefender for about five years.

GravityZone is a stable product and we haven't experienced any problems with it over the past five years.

It is easy to scale and it is suitable for organizations from small businesses to enterprise. It can cover a wide range of environments.

We have implemented GravityZone in environments with more than 2,000 users.

We have been in touch with technical support from time to time, although they have been minor issues related to the customer's environment. The support is good and they respond quickly.

We worked with Kaspersky for about 10 years.

I think that in Egypt, the cloud version of Bitdefender is more mature than Kaspersky and the other vendors. It also has more features. However, Kaspersky has remote installation capability for third party applications, which is something that is missing from Bitdefender.

For EDR The on-premises solutions by other vendors have larger hardware requirements than Bitdefender. also Cloud EDR from Bitdefender is 10 min. installation solution with no Hardware requirements. 

The initial setup is straightforward and easy to do, especially if you are using the cloud version. The deployment will take less than 20 minutes for cloud-based installation, and less than one hour for the on-premises appliance.

Our in-house team handles the deployment and maintenance for our customers. One person is suitable for either installation or maintenance in an enterprise-level organization.

We have uploaded videos to our YouTube channel that include helpful details such as the installation steps and our recommended configuration.

As a distributor for Bitdefender , and as feedback from our clients , I think Bitdefender have and a balanced price package which cover their needs without exceeding the budget .

We cannot in precise Calculate the ROI here in Egypt .

There are different packages available that vary in terms of licensing fees. The entry license is called Business Security, which has basic endpoint features like anti-malware, firewall, and device control.

The next level is called Advanced Security, which protects email and virtualized environments. The third level is called Elite, which has more advanced security features. It is a unique engine to deal with attacks on files or memory. It also has a sandbox, which allows you to collect feedback about any application you are running.

The fourth level is called Ultra, which is an EDR solution.

Kaspersky, Sophos , Microsoft and Eset.

My advice for anybody who is considering or implementing this product is to visit our YouTube channel to look for helpful videos on it to see how to preform and easy and fast POC.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The cloud management is really good. We don't do internal testing, we base our knowledge on the external tests and AV tests.

The cloud management is easy and useful, especially in our case when we have multiple offices in different locations.

We have not had any major problems with Bitdefender, it seems to be quite good.

There are some additional features that they can implement in the product. For example, a remote wipe option or a geo-tracking for the laptop. That may not be the area they are targeting, but it would be useful.

They were working on the encryption management for laptops, and if they complete it then it would be helpful.

This solution is stable and we haven't had any issues.

The users have not reported any issues so far.

This solution is quite scalable. Whether you have a small one or a large one, it's easy to deploy.

We have just under two hundred clients and we have one hundred and eighty users. We have two admins and the rest are endpoint users of protected devices.

In total, we have one hundred and eighty protected devices.

We have not had to contact customer service for technical support. We haven't had any issues.

Previously we did not use a different solution. Bitdefender GravityZone is the first one for this company.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

I like the fact that you download the agent from the website and it's already tied to accounts. We don't have to provide any additional details, so when you download the agent from your cloud portal, it already connects to your instance.

There is a fully functional trial that we used and we didn't have any issues.

This is a good solution and there isn't anything to be worried about.

The only thing that I would probably test is your internal applications. We don't rely on this, but rather, we rely on the cloud applications that are widely known. Sometimes there are issues. If you use standard, widely known applications, it shouldn't be a problem.

Some of the things that we are looking at but not sure how far along they are with releasing are geo-tracking, remote wipe, and encryption management.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The features that are most useful are the simplicity of deploying the package and the cryptosystem for managing all the situations on the computer.

At the moment, I do not have enough experience with the solution to know what needs to be improved. The cryptosystem could be improved a bit.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is easy to scale.

I have contacted technical support in the past. I was very stuck when we started a project in terms of the configuration. Their response was quick and came with good technical support.

Before using Bitdefender, we were using Sophos. It's a very similar system to other firewall appliances. It was a full appliance with everything on it, and we decided to not switch but split all the systems from Sophos to different appliances for better security and improvement of the company.

The initial setup was easy. You just need to read some of the communication and hit it to deploy and it permits on the system. We deployed it to more than 150 users. They are all end users. We have only a few admins.

Before choosing the platform we evaluated other technologies like Palo Alto Traps. It was a bit different. We chose our solution because it was very simple to use, to deploy, and it was really good for our needs.

At the moment everything is good for me. It's really simple to use it.

I would rate this solution nine out of 10.

I like that you can manage, uninstall, and install everything via the web console.

Having better descriptions or larger headings that will help you navigate through the to the ISP is needed. It needs to be a bit easier, a bit more intuitive. It would also be nice if we could move devices between companies.

The solution is very stable. We have about 23,000 end users.

The scalability is fantastic.

The outreach from support was a bit bad according to their plan, but we've got two people here that manage and support GravityZone and interact with them and they manage it very well. So, I'm pretty satisfied.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We implemented the solution ourselves.

I would 100% advise using the solution.

I'd rate the solution 10 out of 10.

One feature I found valuable was controlling from the cloud. It was better for me that GravityZone could be controlled from the cloud. 

We are having trouble on the server side. But also on the endpoint side. For example, specifically on my computer, I couldn't run it, so I had to remove the program. I'm not using endpoint security for now, especially not Bitdefenders right now.

We find it's making the machines run slow. We're also having problems in the service groups. When we run GravityZone it suddenly goes very slowly. Some processes are bad and we can't use some features, so we had to uninstall some products from the service of some endpoint devices. We are using about 2000 endpoints and 2000 servers.

They seem to have problems installing for the client. We can't seem to find support when we do an install. Uninstalling it is a problem as well. Recently, I tried to uninstall from my computer and when I tried to deploy it, it was hard for me to uninstall it. I have found some tools, but it was really hard to remove it with them too. 

It must be optimized in my opinion. Because it makes the machine very slow. In the past, we were using ESET NOD32. It was very good, it was not making the machine slow. It was normal. The machine was fast when I'm used ESET, but when I started using Bitdefender it made my computer very slow. It's not just me. My colleague is complaining that the machines are becoming very slow after using Bitdefender.

They should make uninstalling easier and improve the service side, but also make it removable on demand locally. It needs to be removable from the local service, not the cloud.

From what I understand, we were going to program from the cloud, and have one policy from the cloud. Some policies would be okay. But my computer was not visible in the cloud. Normally it's good because if we can move it onto the cloud, it would make it easy. With the use of the cloud, we can move many computers at the same time. At the time we had more than 2000 devices using it. But I couldn't move my computer. It was bad for me.

We had issues with technical support. They kept saying that they were helping, but in reality, on the ground, we had problems. From the server side, we had issues. We had so many servers, but we weren't using most of them. We had a license, but we weren't using it.

Previously we just used ESET.

The initial setup was complex, plus the IT company was not using one individual for one program for one company. They are installing for other companies also. There are so many companies, they're not installing the quality program for another person, or for other companies.

It's different, ESET.  You must learn it very well. Because every time you're downloading ESET, you're downloading a different ESET. Its operation is not the best at supporting people with IT issues. The workload is much more than before. We must do the same job with fewer people. It's so much work. But it's harder than ESET.

We looked at Kapersky and a few more. Kapersky was better than this product. I knew the Bitdefender engine was used by so many devices and the engine was known very well. But as an antivirus program, Kapersky and ESET were better than this solution. But their price for the company was too much. In my opinion, Kapersky's server side is better.

If you move from the cloud and can find good support in your country, it's advisable. But otherwise, the next time, I think I'd not choose Bitdefender GravityZone. I would rate the solution a 6 or 6.5 out of 10. Because of the issues we experienced on the server-side.

I like the style of it. It's great because I have access to it from anywhere. 

The solution can be improved by being able to pull up the localization key map of the user. Also, to be more international, not just American compliant.

I never had any issues, never had any bugs, it was very stable. I liked it very much.

I was in a daily rush and was put in touch with people who were selling the solution, so I was not left with a good impression.

I do wish the two solutions I picked up had the same way of working, but that's not the case. So, it's a compromise. I really like it; I really had a good time with the professional who pushed Bitdefender with me. He had a good experience. I don't know if I had the strength to set up everything. I needed to pre-offer the application, and I've tried Cryptids, pre-boot encryption on the drive, and BitCourse, which is Bitdefender's.

If you want to have a pre-boot, the password has to be set up using a keyed map, which is crazy, because nobody uses keyed maps. That's just a corporate failure and it's not acceptable when you see how much it costs.

The panels have also been able to bypass the security shell.

Unfortunately, the solution wasn't designed to be used in France. So I think it should be restricted to the American market.

For those setting up the solution, I would say get used to using core tying cable. 

It's much easier to deploy with the network, there's much more ease. I claim can do that for you, the HTTP management. But the way it was designed, it's not just designed for us.

Using BitDoctor for encryption isn't smart, because we're using Windows 7 Pro, and we can't use Bitcalc elements on Windows 7 Pro because it has to be committed Enterprise. There's no way we're going to buy it from SR Live Central just to get the disk encryption. And this is the whole point: you might as well get your own encryption engine and then just use that solution. Because with BitDoctor, you can encrypt the disk if you do a run dump, and then in the run dump you get the TPA chip and you can decrypt the disk. 

If I was an American, I'd give the solution an 8 out of 10. As a European, I rate the solution 6 out of 10.

We have been reselling Bitdefender for over twelve years now. Our primary use case for this solution is for a microfinance bank. They wanted a solution that can deliver security in the cloud. In fact, there was no other antivirus partner or manufacturer that has enterprise security that is hosted in the cloud. When they came to us, we told them that we have a solution that can do that, which is Bitdefender GravityZone. We told them exactly what it does:

• You don't need to buy a separate server to deploy it, which is major savings for the bank. 
• It is hosted in the cloud. Because it is hosted in the cloud, you can deploy it in the cloud and you can monitor it from anywhere in the world, whether you are in the office or not. It gives you the stability to know which clients have been updated, which clients have not been updated, which ones have been attacked, and which endpoints have been attacked. 
• You can generate your report. You don't necessarily have to be in the office to have the network working. 

Now, the good thing also about that, apart from the savings and the ability to have the stability of your reports no matter where you are, is the fact that at any point in time, you can have a central policy setting. With that, you can set your policy centrally and from there you push to all your clients. Then also, you can generate your report. You don't necessarily have to be in the office to have the network working. 

What happens is that a desktop will be configured to be what they call a relay server. Then the relay server within your line goes to Bitdefender.com to pick up updates and every client on your network gets updates from the local system. What that means is that it reduces your internet calls. They were happy with that.

The client also wanted to know what happens when they're out of office. I explained that if you're out of the office, once you're connected to the internet, using anything the system goes straight to Bitdefender.com. With the first attempt to view the local server, if it's unable to see the local server, then it takes the second route, which is going to Bitdefender.com. They were very happy about that. They asked all about the issue of memory and performance on systems. I explained that the performance is very light because if it's light, the overhead on the systems is also very low. They were also satisfied with that. 

They asked me how to install on the server and not the desktop and I told them that it's exactly the same as a critical file that you push to boot the server and the desktop. The system is intelligent enough to know which operating system is running and it will handle that. 

Lastly, they asked what happens if they have an existing antivirus. Bitdefender has the ability to automatically uninstall any existing antivirus but we can't make any change on your registry.  

We helped them to do a POC, they were happy with it and after that, they purchased a license of around 2,500 users for two years.

Bitdefender has improved my organization in the way that it has grown our revenue over the years. We have more clients that have signed on Bitdefender GravityZone. Then we have clients who are also migrating from other antivirus solutions to GravityZone because of the ease of use, ease of installation and the fact that it can be deployed in the cloud and the same software; you can actually install it on other servers or workstations. It automatically knows what it's protecting.

Most importantly, we've also had very good support from Bitdefender. Any time you get to Bitdefender support with any issue, their response has been very helpful.

The feature that I've found most valuable is the ability to configure updates to be hourly. Only very few antiviruses can do that. You can be protected from a wide range of malware because it can do hourly updates. We haven't heard of another solution that can do this.

The pricing should be improved. The user interface has been improved on a yearly basis. The key issue is that they need to look at their pricing.

Bitdefender is very productive because since we started selling Bitdefender for the past ten years, we've had almost about six different revisions. Every year and every six months there are improvements in their products, based on feedback, customer needs, changes in technology, and so on. 

For example, people were talking about encryption, so today you have GravityZone that has the ability to perform disc encryption. Disc encryption is done to ensure that your disc isn't attacked. 

Clients were requesting for endpoint detection EDR, which right now they have been able to incorporate. At any point in time, they have always been improving. 

Every six months there are new features. Every three months new features come in to address the needs of these customers. Bitdefender has consistently been very pro-active in virtually all the places we've installed. We ask our clients if they have any issues with the product. All of them say that it's very easy to install and to understand and that they don't have any problems with it. Any global requirements are constantly incorporated. Our clients want to see some intelligence built into reporting but they saw that most antivirus solutions don't do analytics. Bitdefender has acquired a new company that does analytics so the analytics software gets input from the antivirus then it is able to correlate and give you the analytics that are required.

Once we install it properly, it is stable.

We don't have any issues with the scalability. 

In terms of the number of users that use this solution, it depends on the client. One of our clients has a 2,500 user license. We have another one using an over 4,000 user license. We have some using a 5 user license. 

Usually, the roles of the people who manage it within the organization are on the security team. It's usually people in the network administration, working with IT security

Bitdefender has very good technical support because all you need to do is send an email to support and in less than five minutes somebody is online. You can also chat with them if you need to chat. They have the option to email. If you are in a remote area, they have telephonic support as well. 

We have been using Bitdefender for a long time. We've never used any other antivirus. Other customers have moved from other platforms to Bitdefender because of the possibility of the cloud solution. 

They also choose Bitdefender because it has competitive pricing compared to solutions like McAfee and Symantec. They have local support and it's easy to use.

The initial setup is very straightforward and easy. All you need to do is set up your account in Bitdefender Central. Once you open up your accounts, an email is sent to you, you accept the email, and set up your password then it gives you space on the cloud and that's all. It's good to go. The next thing is to link it to your active directory. Once you link it to the active directory, you can see all the users and you just send them an email and they will click and once they click, that's all. It's very easy.

Usually, deployments can take up to six months but can vary from two days to three months as well. It depends on one, the environment in the sense that, if for example, we are deploying to an organization with about 9,000 users, and they are distributed across a large geographical location, they cannot do an antivirus deployment immediately. They need to do what is called a phased implementation. Usually, phases are done off work periods, either in the night or weekends. The reason is that we don't want anything that would disrupt operations. 

Two, usually before we do implementation we do what they call a checklist. We need to know which systems they have if they're Windows, Android or IOS. We want to know which versions because not all versions are supported at any point in time. If they're not supported, we need to do an upgrade on these systems before implementations start. 

Thirdly, we look at the memory and what resources they have. Usually, there is what we call minimum and there's recommended. We go for recommended in terms of specification. Once the recommended is done, we look at the structure of their active directory then after that, we sit down with the IT team who are going to be part of the implementation and take them through the product portfolio of what we want to implement. We show them all the features, show them the various implementation methodologies and configuration options. We show them how updates are done. We now move farther to tell them some of the other requirements like some ports that must be left open in each of these systems at the routers so that the packages can pass through, they are not considered as malicious.

If you have any other security software running in your environment, you'll need to create exceptions for the Bitdefender package. After that, we start implementation with one or two systems then we allow them to then shadow us and do it on their own. If there are issues, we show them where the mistake was made. We continue to give them offline support or on-site support depending on the contract they have signed with us or with our resellers.

Ordinarily, the number of staff we require for deployment is a function of how large the organization is. On average, it's a maximum of five people because for very large organizations we have to do phased implementations and depending on which implementation methodology is chosen, whether it's going to be on-prem or cloud. If it's cloud, it's very simple. Somebody just logs on to the computer and begins to deploy very easily. Just control the systems and do the installation. 

We're a value-added distributor. We have technical expertise in-house, we give resellers the options to either deploy or we deploy on their behalf. There are some resellers who don't have deployment abilities, there are some resellers who have deployment abilities, and there are some users who have deployment abilities, there are some users who don't have deployment skills. It depends on the scenario. If a user wants to do the deployment themselves it's fine but if they run into a problem during installation, we are going to charge them for the installation. We usually draw a line between installation issues and support issues especially for new clients because some clients want to install it themselves then in the course of the installation, they don't install properly and they tell us it's a support issue.

The licensing cost is on a monthly basis when you're doing the MSP model. MSP is a managed security service model. If you're doing the regular one year license, the licensing is based on what we call, a licensing band, so you get the minimum. The minimum is a three-user license. The pricing depends on the nature of the customer's environment, the number of users, and the infrastructure the customer has. 

For example, if you have Microsoft Exchange in your environment and you want to protect it then you have to take a different option because you have the options of GravityZone business, you have the GravityZone Advance then you have the GravityZone Enterprise. It depends on the function of your infrastructure. Once we are able to know the infrastructure a customer has then we'll be able to come up with the right option.

There are additional costs apart from the initial licensing fee. The additional costs will come from things like the local support of the partner. If you're looking for on-site support then that would be an additional cost. They offer free offsite support, like telephonic and email support. 

We evaluated all other solutions like Symantec and McAfee which has no local support. We evaluated ESET but their rating was not good. We evaluated Kaspersky but Kaspersky required many resources.

My advice to somebody considering this solution would be to one, make sure that you get the exact model of the product you're looking for based on your environment. Two, you must ensure that you meet the minimum requirements because for Bitdefender if you don't meet the minimum requirements, it will not install. It will not install and if it does not install you will never know where the problem is coming from. 

I would rate Bitdefender a ten out of ten. 

We implemented it as an antivirus solution in our enterprise two months ago. It monitors and defends our endpoints against viruses and malware.

Once we installed Bitdefender, we saw that servers that had been attacked by certain types of malware were protected. Our applications have some defect issues and Bitdefender has proven to be a good antivirus and malware solution.

They are constantly updating the solution against malware.

There is room for improvement in the communication between servers and endpoints. The performance there needs to be much better. When we install endpoints and they communicate with the appliance server, we notice a drop in endpoint performance. The endpoint automatically connects and the policies are applied to the endpoint but the performance does not meet our expectations.

In terms of additional features, I would like to see a remote desktop for installed endpoints so administrators can see what is on a user's screen or what a user is doing. A remote desktop between the server and the endpoints would be a useful feature in Bitdefender.

It's very stable. The only thing I recommend is that the communication between the endpoint and the server needs improvement.

It's highly scalable. The scalability is very good. However, some legacy solutions on Windows caused issues, but we were able to solve them ourselves.

Technical support has been good. They are kind and respect our issues. I have received the help I need.

We had cybersecurity issues with our servers. One of our servers was attacked by ransomware. After that, we decided to bring on a solution to defend our servers from such issues.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was so simple I did it myself. I didn't need to go to the manuals, other than a little bit at the beginning. After that I continued everything by myself. It was so easy.

The deployment took about two hours.

There is a good return on investment. It gives you the protection you need and, for network administrators, peace of mind, once you have installed this solution. All your data will be secured by Bitdefender.

A good thing about Bitdefender is its price. It has a suitable price for every company and organization. I evaluated a lot of antivirus solutions, but some of them were so expensive. The most suitable one was Bitdefender.

I have reviewed a lot of solutions such as Kaspersky and Avast Endpoint Protection. I tested them myself, although not in production. But Bitdefender has proven, when installed in the production environment, to be very stable, good, and reliable.

Don't spend too much time searching. You'll find it easy to deploy this solution. Just download and try the trial version.

In terms of maintaining the solution, it requires two people, a network administrator and a backup network administrator. At the moment we don't have any plans to increase usage, but in the future we will have more endpoints.