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ESET PROTECT Enterprise vs Microsoft Defender XDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 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
8.5
ESET PROTECT Enterprise offers excellent ROI with strong security, cost-effectiveness, and user satisfaction prompting switches from competitors.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Defender XDR delivers substantial ROI by streamlining operations, reducing costs, and enhancing security with consolidated functionalities.
The return on investment is excellent due to its functionality and ease of installation.
There was money saving from using ESET PROTECT Enterprise, which is why I switched from CrowdStrike to ESET.
We can quarantine and isolate a device within minutes.
Microsoft Defender XDR has saved me at least 50% of my time.
Ever since we turned on the M5 feature set back in June, we have seen a reduced number of potentially malicious clicks and faster alerting when incidents occur.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.7
ESET PROTECT Enterprise's customer support is praised for being responsive, knowledgeable, and effective, despite occasional redirection to resellers.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Defender XDR support is responsive but varies; premium users receive faster resolutions than smaller organizations or basic plans.
The tech support from ESET is amazing, and I would rate it as ten out of ten.
They are very responsive and help in solving issues quickly.
Even if support is addressing my problem, if the two issues I mentioned are not resolved, then the support process is not complete.
You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.
It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.
Once issues are escalated to the second or third layer, the support is much better.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
ESET PROTECT Enterprise offers robust scalability, easily expanding licenses for large deployments, though server-level enhancements may benefit.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender XDR offers scalable adaptability for large enterprises, accommodating diverse needs by leveraging flexible cloud infrastructure and licensing.
It can efficiently scale up to thousands of devices in an organization without issues.
I have used many products before, and this solution is definitely scalable.
It is better suited for workstations rather than server environments.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
Microsoft Defender XDR scales pretty well.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
ESET PROTECT Enterprise is stable but occasionally disrupts work with update-related restarts; users seek improved notifications.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender XDR is highly reliable but has occasional performance issues on macOS/Linux and alert misclassifications.
When it performs an update, ESET PROTECT Enterprise should request permission for restarting because otherwise, users lose their work.
The solution is stable, and I have not encountered any glitches.
The solution is very, very stable.
The service has remained consistently online, with any issues isolated to specific components, suggesting a well-designed and modular architecture.
The services within our ecosystem have been reliable, meeting their SLAs.
It provides high-fidelity signals.
 

Room For Improvement

ESET PROTECT Enterprise requires improved remote deployment, performance, automation, flexibility, documentation, and affordability to enhance user experience.
Microsoft Defender XDR requires improved UI, integration, clarity, support, AI, and threat detection for better user experience.
Sometimes, agents lose connection with the management console, and the administration team needs to reinstall the agents on the computers.
They need to reduce the number of notifications on the endpoints.
It takes a lot of processing power when the machine is initially booted.
The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.
Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.
Some inconsistencies exist between blades, which could be improved for a more seamless user and UI experience.
 

Setup Cost

ESET PROTECT Enterprise users consider pricing reasonable, competitive, and offering good value despite occasional price increases.
Microsoft Defender XDR pricing varies; it's cost-effective with Microsoft 365, but potentially expensive standalone for smaller businesses.
I pay 40 dollars per agent annually, which is cheaper than 60 dollars per agent for Check Point.
We recently paid fourteen dollars and thirty-six cents per unit for 20 users, which is reasonable.
Comparing it to other solutions in the market, it was slightly higher.
There are certainly savings when using Microsoft Defender XDR, which can range from 30%, 40%, and even up to 50%.
I would rate the pricing as eight out of ten, indicating it is a reasonable cost for the product.
Microsoft purposefully obfuscates this through marketing ploys to hide costs.
 

Valuable Features

ESET PROTECT Enterprise provides robust network monitoring, efficient management, automated tasks, reliable EDR, and secure, low-resource antivirus protection.
Microsoft Defender XDR offers seamless integration, advanced threat management, and automation, enhancing security efficiency while reducing costs and tool complexity.
It allows simple whitelisting and has a learning mode for new installations, which reduces false positives by adapting to typical user habits.
Its web component prevents infections from malicious websites, which enhances its anti-malware capabilities.
One of the strong features of ESET PROTECT Enterprise is its ability to work well on old computers.
With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.
This allows us to secure our systems in advance and proactively improve security, rather than waiting for incidents to occur.
Once we have it on the security dashboard, we can see a real-time storyline.
 

Categories and Ranking

ESET PROTECT Enterprise
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (11th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of ESET PROTECT Enterprise is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 6.5%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Cees Van Den Haak - PeerSpot reviewer
A reliable solution that offers enterprise protection
Our primary use case involves approximately 180 workstations, 180 laptops, and office protection in our environment ESET PROTECT Enterprise is reliable.  The tool is complex and expensive.  I have been using the product for 10 years.  The tool is stable.  The product is scalable. My company…
Gabor Nyerd - PeerSpot reviewer
Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot
We found that sometimes integrations work, but testing them can take some time. Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected. We have a configuration in place that needs to be synchronized with another server. However, the servers are four hours apart, so this can cause delays. In general, I believe that the time it takes to configure and test a service should be shorter. Sometimes, it can take a couple of hours to test a single configuration setting. Other times, it is only ten or fifteen minutes, which is normal. However, sometimes, even immediate actions can be triggered by configuration changes, and some settings can take up to eight hours to complete. I believe that this time can be improved. Microsoft is making a lot of improvements to its services in a short period of time. This is a good thing, as it means that the services are constantly being updated and improved. However, it can be challenging for customers to keep up with the changes. For example, a customer may read about an update, understand it, and share it with their colleagues and boss. However, it may take days or weeks to test the update and get the necessary approvals. This can be especially challenging for large customers with many users or machines. In some cases, Microsoft may change a service before the customer has had a chance to implement the previous update. This can be frustrating for customers, as it means that they have to constantly learn new things and adjust their workflows. On the one hand, it is important for Microsoft to keep updating and improving its services. This helps to ensure that the services are meeting the customers' needs and that they are staying ahead of the competition. Microsoft should also be mindful of the challenges that these changes can create for customers. One way to address this challenge is to provide customers with more time to implement changes. Microsoft could also provide more information about upcoming changes so that customers can plan ahead. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to strike a balance between keeping its services up-to-date and providing customers with a smooth transition to new features.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ESET Protect?
The product enabled Zero-Day Protection for our environment. We never encountered any issues regarding threats.
What needs improvement with ESET Protect?
ESET PROTECT Enterprise makes the system a little slow sometimes and updates occur at startup. Sometimes unwanted pop-ups appear to users, and they are unable to disable them. The user-friendliness...
What is your primary use case for ESET Protect?
I work with another ESET solution called EDR and XDR. I am working with ESET PROTECT Enterprise and ESET Endpoint Security. I am using ESET Secure Authentication, also called ESET EDR and XDR Enter...
What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
The pricing for Microsoft Sentinel operates on a pay-as-you-go model based on data ingestion. I recall that Defender XDR pricing is based on the number of endpoints.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
For Microsoft Defender XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ), there is currently no ability to reset passwords for on-premises accounts, which is a key challenge. Incident managem...
 

Also Known As

ESET Protect, ESET File Security
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about ESET PROTECT Enterprise vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
856,874 professionals have used our research since 2012.