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F-Secure Total vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

F-Secure Total
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (9th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of F-Secure Total is 4.4%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 9.1%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint9.1%
F-Secure Total4.4%
Other86.5%
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

MS
Computer Scientist at Comune di Eraclea
Easy to setup and stable solution
It's a good product for us. The reports and notifications are very good for us.  There is room for improvement in pricing.  In future releases, I would like to see improvements in EDR protection.  So, the only thing that I would like to see in the future is EDR protection and a lower price for…
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a good product for us. The reports and notifications are very good for us."
"It's an enterprise solution that provides a centralized console and it supports all the platforms that we use, including Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android."
"The feature I find most valuable in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it blocks the process and keeps the endpoint from getting infected with malware."
"It performs well. The stability is seamless."
"The features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that I prefer most are the detections. It just works."
"It's absolutely free to use."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable. Currently, we have 600,000 users in our organization."
"The solution's main antivirus capabilities are okay. So far, they have kept us safe."
"The solution is highly scalable."
 

Cons

"I would like to see in the future is EDR protection and a lower price for F-Secure Total."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should have more transparency. In the latest edition of Windows, Windows 11, it is a compulsory requirement to connect to a Microsoft account, which in turn has implications for Defender. This should be removed."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is not as robust, and you cannot customize it much, so that's a challenge."
"Defender is free for one year. Once that year is over, we will switch to Kaspersky."
"Cortex... has good investigation capabilities, out-of-the-box, in case there is an event that you'd like to investigate. It's quite convenient. Microsoft has those capabilities as well, but you need a bit more training on the product to get the basic information that you can get out-of-the-box with Cortex."
"There is a need for improvement in reducing false positives."
"Localization is always a challenge, especially with new products you typically want. Solutions are designed to be deployed where the most licenses are being consumed, such as in the United States. They focus on US products, devices, and networks. Specialized deployments for other countries would allow for a smoother experience in transition."
"More integration with different platforms is an area for improvement for this product, and should be included in its next release."
"I personally haven't experienced any pain points, but some of my coworkers feel that it isn't secure enough."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We can easily scale and improve security, but the cost is high for us."
"The solution is free with Windows."
"Microsoft Defender ATP is expensive."
"Microsoft has different plans for buying this product. The price depends on the configuration of the full set of products that you buy and on the licensing program in your contract."
"I pay for it through the Windows Professional or Standard license. It is a one-time cost for me, and I use the same license."
"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."
"The solution is free and comes with Windows."
"For most people, the price of the license is not something that they have to worry about."
"For me, the pricing is very good, but for management it's very expensive. Other solutions are less expensive. But when I present all the information and all the reports they say, "Well, it's expensive, but the cost-benefit is very good.""
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Non Profit
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
 

Questions from the Community

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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

F-Secure Elements for Microsoft 365
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
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