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Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Acronis Cyber Protect Home ...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (38th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 15.6%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

BH
Reliable backup tool ensures quick restoration and peace of mind
I use Acronis for backups. I use it to back up to other drives on the network, back up the entire system, including system images of the Windows C drive and all the data drives. This is for a small business, just myself The reliable tool allows for quick restoration from backup copies, meaning I…
Sudhen Swami - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to update with good protection and a useful cloud portal
We've mainly used it for endpoints. However, we've also used it for DLP as well. We're also in the process of implementing it for cloud and identity as well. However, it's very good for endpoints, and that's our main focus. The malware protection is good. The visibility it provides is very useful. We can combine visibility with wider security features and alerts around malware, misconfiguration, or any other kinds of threats. The cloud portal is quite good. From there, we are able to see alerts and have colleagues review issues and monitor to see if any patterns arise. It's serving us quite well overall. It allows us to look at other items, like application and browser control. It helps us prioritize threats. We have a process in place now where we can review issues and remediate them effectively. We have been able to integrate a variety of Microsoft security products together. We use Azure AD, for example, and we've begun to implement DLP, among other items. We're looking at labeling and tagging and will expand into that soon. Defender has more stringent system requirements than, for example, Check Point. So when we implemented the Check Point Endpoint agent, that solution didn't mind what version of Windows you were using. When we moved to Defender, Defender had certain system prerequisites that had to be met. So we had to make sure that we're on a minimum version of Windows when we're utilizing Office, and Office has to be a particular version as well. It has more stringent system requirements that have to be met before you can implement it. It works natively together with other Microsoft solutions. Once you get more and more of those different components across the environment, then you start to get better visibility. So, rather than having lots of different solutions, you have fewer solutions and a single vendor solution. That way, you start getting into a position where you get better visibility and integration as well. The standardization is good. It's important. It's helping me with monitoring and learning. Updates and upgrades are quite smooth and seamless. Defender helps us automate routine tasks. Quite a lot of Microsoft is straightforward for us now. Previously, we didn't have enough resources and were unable to look at the alerts. Having this in place makes things a lot more straightforward for us. We have both the technology and the people in place now, alongside the process. We do see the benefits in that, and that's why we're continuing our adoption across the estate in terms of client and server as well. It's helping us avoid looking at multiple dashboards and centralized monitoring. We're not fully there yet. We're getting there. While we haven't witnessed time saving yet, once it's fully deployed, it will. By then, we'll have standardized processes across a single solution. We have saved money, however, as we continue to reduce non-Mircosft systems. Since we won't be using various competing technologies, we can save on licensing costs. We've likely so far saved 15%. While it's hard to estimate exactly how much, the solution has helped us decrease time to detection and time to respond.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Acronis schedules in the background and does incremental images so it doesn’t take forever to backup."
"The reliable tool allows for quick restoration from backup copies, meaning I do not have to reload Windows or programs."
"The customer service and support are excellent."
"The malware feature is most valuable."
"The notification and reporting features are most valuable because we are part of a compliance project, and maintaining SOC 2 compliance is critical."
"It integrates very well with all Windows workstations or other Microsoft Endpoint products. It also works quite well. So far, I have not had any issue that hasn't been sorted out. It doesn't use too many resources, so you don't have to install different things."
"It's not really visible for the user - which is a benefit."
"The stability keeps getting better and better."
"We can react to threats faster and stop them from spreading from one machine to another. It protects from suspicious email attachment downloads. It will lock down the SOC and the workstations."
"Ensures that I'm working with a product that gets updated regularly without me having to remember to do it. Since it's a Microsoft product, I'm confident that it requires a low use of system resources. The benefit of that being that my computer isn't constantly being drained."
"One of the features which differentiates it from other EDR providers is the Automated Investigation and Response, which reduces the workload of SOC analysts or engineers. They don't have to manually investigate each and every alert on the endpoint, since it does so automatically. And you can automate the investigation part."
"The main features of this solution are that it handles everything by itself and is well integrated."
 

Cons

"I had a couple of false positives, but that’s it."
"I originally intended to use Acronis for cloud backup, however, the cloud backup had major problems. After struggling with it for about two years, I switched to Carbonite and have not gone back."
"The configuration needs improvement."
"I originally intended to use Acronis for cloud backup, however, the cloud backup had major problems."
"The time to generate certain alerts on our dashboard can take between 45 minutes to an hour, and I am unsure of the factors that influence this duration."
"Phishing and Malware detection could be better."
"Microsoft support could be more knowledgeable."
"It can get a bit laggy sometimes. Other than that, we don't have any issues. They constantly tweak it and fix it up based on users' feedback. It has improved a lot over the past four years. Defender for Endpoint never really used to be a good endpoint security solution, but over the past couple of years, Microsoft has invested heavily in it. So, it has come a long way in all aspects of endpoint security. If they want to make it better, they should just continue investing in the current path of what they've been doing over the past couple of years."
"In India at least, it seems to be a bit more expensive than other options."
"I think Microsoft needs to improve some of the security aspects of Defender. The email part, in particular, needs to be improved in terms of security effectiveness."
"It is currently more suitable for end-users rather than enterprises with lots of other processes and third-party tools. It needs improvement on that front. We had many issues while integrating it with our enterprise solutions, such as Splunk, and third-party tools. It provides everything via APIs. Other vendors provide integration with third-party tools, but Microsoft doesn't do that. It is also logging too much and is not serialized from the process aspect. It has all the data, but it is not in a proper format or not properly indexed, which doesn't make it easier for enterprises to use this data. Other vendors provide troubleshooting information that can be used to troubleshoot issues, but Microsoft doesn't provide anything like that."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by providing more user-friendly dashboards. They may be complicated for some."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Currently, for us, Windows Defender is free with the purchase of Windows Server. Pricing is an important point for us when we are looking at the competitors of this solution. If we choose to go with another vendor, we will have to pay some license fees."
"You do not need to pay any additional costs for antivirus and anti-malware solutions for endpoint protection."
"Because Microsoft Defender comes as an add-on, it can be a bit expensive if you're trying to buying it separately. Another option is to upgrade, but the enterprise licenses for Microsoft can also be quite a bit pricey. Overall, the cost of Microsoft Defender compared to that of other endpoint detection solutions is slightly higher."
"The E5 license is the one that I recommend because it comes with Cloud App Security, which is a good thing to have on top of Microsoft Defender."
"We are required to pay for the data we ingest, and increasing the data amount incurs additional expenses."
"The solution is free."
"The normal, standalone model, is not expensive, but the enterprise model that includes the bundle with email and some web protection, is a bit more expensive."
"We sell this product as part of Office 365 and it is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
34%
Computer Software Company
13%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office?
I originally intended to use Acronis for cloud backup, however, the cloud backup had major problems. After struggling with it for about two years, I switched to Carbonite and have not gone back.
What is your primary use case for Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office?
I use Acronis for backups. I use it to back up to other drives on the network, back up the entire system, including system images of the Windows C drive and all the data drives. This is for a small...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.