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Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.2
Check Point Harmony Endpoint boosts ROI by enhancing security, reducing costs, and improving efficiency and protection, with recognized cost savings.
Sentiment score
7.3
Organizations achieve financial gains and efficiency by using Microsoft Defender, eliminating third-party solutions, and enhancing security management.
The product is affordable and provides excellent coverage and protection across multiple platforms.
I have seen a return on investment with Check Point Harmony Endpoint, as it has saved money and time due to the minimum disruption of production hours, which allows users to focus on their main tasks and desired targets, avoiding downtime and contributing to business growth.
The earlier EDR devices we used were more time-consuming, and deploying that particular agent on all devices took time, but the centralized management console has significantly reduced both time consumption and the extra manual efforts required.
Without detection and protection measures, organizations would face substantial payments and reputational damage, including the necessity to inform customers about data breaches, potentially leading to loss of business.
We have seen a return on investment when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it saves labor by reducing the need for staff to focus on it.
The biggest return on investment for me when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the time saving.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.7
Check Point Harmony Endpoint's customer service is highly rated, responsive, and professional, though improvements in response speed are suggested.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft's Defender for Endpoint support is generally effective but experiences vary; premium options offer swift, knowledgeable assistance.
Only email support is available, leading to delays in getting assistance.
The customer support for Check Point Harmony Endpoint is quite good; they are ready to help us.
The customer support for Check Point Harmony Endpoint is good.
The level-one support seems disconnected from subject matter experts.
I rate Microsoft support 10 out of 10.
Due to our size, we don't have access to direct technical support, but the knowledge base, Microsoft Learn, and the articles available are really good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.8
Check Point Harmony Endpoint offers scalable, cloud-based security with easy expansion, centralized management, and minor deployment challenges.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint efficiently scales with diverse enterprises, integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, supporting growth effectively.
Allowing us to add more users or endpoints for protection as our organization grows without any issues.
The scalability of Check Point Harmony Endpoint is effective, as it manages behaviors, process trees, and analysis in a centralized way.
Check Point Harmony Endpoint is scalable, suitable for both small and large companies.
We managed to scale it out in a short amount of time, with two months of planning and three months of implementation on 10,000 computers.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable enough to handle various devices across environments, whether they are laptops, Android devices, or operating in hybrid environments.
Compatibility is its main feature.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Check Point Harmony Endpoint is stable and reliable, though occasionally exhibits bugs and uninstall issues, particularly in low-resource settings.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is praised for stability, efficiency, and low resource impact, despite minor occasional bugs.
The stability of the tool is high, as I have not experienced any downtime.
Check Point Harmony Endpoint is stable for our organization size of 1,000 to 10,000 members.
I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft.
I rate Defender 10 out of 10 for stability.
Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Check Point Harmony Endpoint needs better integration, improved user experience, enhanced support, and competitive pricing for broader compatibility.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint struggles with support, integration, UI, performance issues, and lacks essential features and platform support.
Better technical support would enhance the product's competitiveness.
High resource consumption, requiring high-performance PCs on our endpoint site.
The Endpoint Agent can be more lightweight so that older machines and laptops can easily handle its consumption.
Repeated interactions are necessary due to Level One's lack of tools and knowledge, hindering efficient problem-solving and negatively impacting our experience with Microsoft support.
We use Microsoft partners to help govern the platform, and as part of an alliance, we want to gather data from each tenant and combine them for a complete view.
Providing more detailed information on how Microsoft Defender for Endpoint detects vulnerabilities.
 

Setup Cost

Check Point Harmony Endpoint provides flexible, subscription-based licensing with robust security, low setup costs, and optional negotiated pricing.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers cost-effective, flexible pricing options integrated with Microsoft services, including discounts for education and volume.
It is not expensive and provides comprehensive coverage.
Pricing is a bit expensive but justified by the product’s features, capabilities, and scalability.
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been all good with Check Point Harmony Endpoint.
Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs.
It costs $15 per VM for the P2 plan, which is seen as affordable for customers.
The pricing, setup, and licensing were very easy and simple.
 

Valuable Features

Check Point Harmony Endpoint offers AI-driven threat prevention, easy integration, and scalability for robust, efficient security management.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers seamless integration, real-time protection, and automated response, ensuring robust security with minimal impact.
Check Point Harmony Endpoint protects our company by warning us against clicking any malicious links and prevents our hosts from becoming vulnerable to cyber attacks.
The anti-ransomware and threat emulation features have significantly helped our organization as they prevent attackers from encrypting files during ransomware attacks, allowing the system to re-decrypt files and restore them to their original forms, effectively stopping ransomware attacks.
Check Point Harmony Endpoint offers top tier security, AI-powered threat prevention, and strong scalability, which stand out as the best features.
Defender for Endpoint's coverage across different platforms in our environment is pretty good. We have devices running Linux, Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and Android. It covers all of them.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides a unified management interface allowing customers to manage their on-premises and hybrid infrastructures from a single pane.
One of the best features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its database for identifying zero-day attacks or malware attacks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Check Point Harmony Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
8th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Check Point Harmony Endpoint is 2.3%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 10.8%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Alejandro Flores. - PeerSpot reviewer
Good visibility with cloud centralized management and several layers of security
There are some "weak points" that have to be mentioned, including: 1) If the IT department is used to "cloning" endpoints (making images) you are going to have a hard time trying to install the product and you are going to end up reading a lot of Check Point documents. 2) If you are used to the granularity of roles features in Check Point Quantums products you are going to be a little bit disappointed. You can't set customized roles with customized read/write permissions. 3) You need a mature security team to manage this solution in order to get the most value from it.
AnuragSrivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detailed visibility into threats but the ability to add exceptions needs improvement
One major item for improvement is the ability to add exceptions. We can add some exceptions, but not at the level we need to. The second major area for improvement involves enhanced capabilities for different operating systems or platforms. That is, even though we have coverage for different operating systems or platforms such as Linux, we don't get all of the controls and enhanced capabilities that are available with Windows devices. Reporting could also be improved because, at present, we get limited results at times. For example, in an environment with more than 100,000 devices, you may just get 10,000 results when you run a report.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Check Point Harmony Endpoint?
The platform's most valuable features are the ability to build API, which meets our business requirements, and the VPN client, which provides VPN access from a single client.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Harmony Endpoint?
The price for Check Point Harmony Endpoint ( /products/check-point-harmony-endpoint-reviews ) is good considering the services it offers. It is not expensive and provides comprehensive coverage.
What needs improvement with Check Point Harmony Endpoint?
One area that requires improvement is the amount of audit logs the system can save, as it is currently limited to fourteen days.
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

Check Point Endpoint Security, Endpoint Security, Check Point SandBlast Agent
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Boston Properties, Independence Care System, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), Courtagen Life Sciences, Carmel Partners
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.