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Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender for Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

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
7.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint enhances productivity and reduces costs by streamlining threat detection, integrating tools, and minimizing manual intervention.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Defender boosts productivity and security, integrating seamlessly with Office tools for significant budget savings despite ROI challenges.
Using Microsoft Defender for Business results in cost reductions as it consolidates various features under one product, saving around 20% to 30% of the budget.
It is pretty good because it offers various features such as Exchange, OfficeSuite, OneDrive, and SharePoint.
The value I see in Microsoft Defender for Business is in its ability to track and respond to application usage and security threats through its CASB and automation features, which are cost-beneficial.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Cisco Secure Endpoint support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, providing quick issue resolution and valuable user guidance.
Sentiment score
5.2
Users have mixed reviews of Microsoft Defender's support, noting contact difficulties and inconsistent technical assistance despite good onboarding.
Cisco has good technical support, especially considering these are newer solutions compared to traditional routing and switching products.
It is rated ten out of ten for its quality and assistance.
The onboarding support is exceptional, ensuring seamless integration and implementation.
Faster support is needed for endpoint security solutions.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint is scalable, integrates with SecureX for efficient management, and supports diverse industries without extra resources.
Sentiment score
8.2
Microsoft Defender for Business is scalable and effective across diverse environments, though special configurations might impact growth speed.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is definitely scalable.
The cloud-based nature of the solution ensures high scalability.
The scalability of Microsoft Defender for Business is rated as ten, indicating it is very scalable.
In terms of scalability, I would rate Microsoft Defender for Business a ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco Secure Endpoint is highly stable, reliable, and trusted for performance, earning high ratings from users in various enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Defender for Business is stable and reliable, with minimal crashes, but some report occasional bugs impacting stability.
We have not encountered any problems.
No customer complaints about its functionality or reliability.
Although it generally works, there are occasional issues and errors that sometimes require a complete system format to rectify.
I would rate the stability of Microsoft Defender for Business with a three out of ten, where one is very bad.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint requires better integration, reporting, and UI enhancements, alongside improved pricing, AI capabilities, and IoT support.
Microsoft Defender for Business needs better reporting, integration, simplified interface, and enhanced features to address various limitations and concerns.
The forensic capabilities need enhancement, especially for deep forensic data collection.
Microsoft should provide batch management solutions with the application, integrating pass management with roles.
Features related to Advanced Persistent Threat detection vectors and cyber kill chain integrations are not available out-of-the-box.
There can be improvements in the user interface to make it more intuitive.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers competitive and flexible pricing with value-rich features, despite some complexity in licensing.
Microsoft Defender for Business offers competitive pricing with enterprise value, though some users find costs high compared to competitors.
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
Single-year pricing remains good.
The pricing is quite affordable at the enterprise level with no extra expenses noted.
The package with Business Premium is good for what you get for the price.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides advanced security features, cross-platform support, and ease of use with strong threat intelligence and support.
Microsoft Defender for Business integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, offering comprehensive security, scalability, and user-friendly features for effective threat management.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet.
The threat detection capabilities are robust, with a dedicated research team and a continuously updated threat feed.
Its vulnerability management is regarded as one of the best in the industry.
The most effective features of Microsoft Defender for Business include its threat detection and response capabilities in managing vulnerabilities and ransomware attacks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
25th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (21st), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 2.0%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Mark Broughton - PeerSpot reviewer
Tighter integration with Umbrella and Firepower gave us eye-opening information
We were using a third-party help desk. One of the ways that they were fixing problems was to delete the client and then add the client back if there was an issue where the client had stopped communicating. Any improvement in the client communicating back to the server would be good, particularly for machines that are offline for a couple of weeks. A lot of our guys were working on a rotation where the machine might be offline for that long. They were also terrible about rebooting their machines, so those network connections didn't necessarily get refreshed. So, anything that could improve that communication would be good. Also, an easier way to do deduplication of machines, or be alerted to the fact that there's more than one instance of a machine, would be useful. If you could say, "Okay, we've got these two machines. This one says it's not reporting and this one says it's been reporting. Obviously, somebody did a reinstall," it would help. That way you could get a more accurate device count, so you're not having an inflated number. Not that Cisco was going to come down on you and say, "Oh, you're using too many licenses," right away. But to have a much more accurate license usage count by being able to better dedupe the records would be good. I also sent over a couple of other ideas to our technical rep. A lot of that had to do with the reporting options. It would be really nice to be able to do a lot more in the reporting. You can't really drill down into the reports that are there. The reporting and the need for the documentation to be updated and current would be my two biggest areas of complaint. Also, there was one section when I was playing with the automation where it was asking for the endpoint type rather than the machine name. If I could have just put in the machine name, that would have been great. So there are some opportunities, when it comes to searching, to have more options. If I wanted to search, for example, by a Mac address because, for some reason, I thought there was a duplication and I didn't have the machine name, how could I pull it up with the Mac address? When you're getting to that level, you're really starting to get into the ticky tacky. I would definitely put the reporting and documentation way ahead of that.
Takayuki-Umehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Product deployment protects assets but needs improvement in system support
I am doing maintenance for Microsoft Defender for Business, and I'm currently working with it. We don't need to use the latest version of Microsoft Defender for Business. We still use the latest virus definition file that Microsoft Defender for Business has automatically updated. We implement a basic update mechanism. Our compliance division manages how many servers and PCs we have and whether those servers have antivirus solutions. I am not certain about how Microsoft Defender for Business helps with AI-driven security strategies. I just use it normally and don't know if it uses AI technology. I rate Microsoft Defender for Business a six out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Endpoint?
The product's initial setup phase was very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco Secure Endpoint lacks features like DLP which other vendors offer. XDR is new, so integration capabilities with third-party tools need improvement. The forensic capabilities need enhancement,...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Business?
A few things are valuable. One is the alerting we see when any kind of intrusion is happening, any kind of malware is being deployed across the endpoints, or any kind of suspicious activity is goin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?
Our thoughts on the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Business are that we wish it could be better. If the pricing was a little better, we would definitely increase what we currently have.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?
Microsoft Defender for Business could improve by offering more of their offerings available in the basic tenants since not everyone has a budget for higher-level licenses, but everyone needs securi...
 

Also Known As

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Business and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.