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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Norton Security Premium [EOL] comparison

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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

Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (6th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Agentic Endpoint Security (3rd)
Norton Security Premium [EOL]
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

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.
RC
Project Manager at Amdocs
User-friendly solution with good blocking
I mainly use Security Premium as an antivirus.  Security Premium's best features are blocking, notifications, and the user interface. Security Premium's cost could be lower. I've been using Security Premium for a year. Security Premium is stable - I haven't faced any issues or bugs while using…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to use because it is already pre-installed in Windows 10. We don't have to do anything to configure it. You can also configure the firewall by using a group policy so that it can be easily adopted in an environment."
"It automatically detects intrusion and malware."
"We had Norton Antivirus before, and with Norton, we didn't have a way to centrally manage a lot of features. Defender allowed us to deploy it from our Office 365 admin console. That is probably the biggest thing that made us go with Defender."
"For the end user it's good to know that everything is safe and well protected."
"I like the fact that it has the ransomware solution in there. I'm glad that the ransomware solution is built into it. That's probably the biggest thing that I see in Microsoft Defender."
"DFE organizational security posture has been a positive experience. We're a Microsoft house. It works. Once it's deployed and once it's configured, it works and our clients tend to be happy with it. I haven't really experienced anyone who has been so unsatisfied with the platform that they wanted to go a couple of different directions, that has never happened to me."
"In terms of the installation, ease of use, and user interface, Defender has been great so far."
"The feature I like the most about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it's built into Microsoft; the ASR rules have really secured our endpoints."
"The most valuable feature is the quick installation."
"With the heightened security around phishing, identity theft, and malware, this is a good product."
"I'm convinced that Symantec and Norton are the leaders, they know what they are doing, they cover all functionalities of spam, virus, and malware protection, etc."
"The ransomware protection that they have now is worth considering."
"The licensing fee for this solution is not expensive."
"It does not take many resources during scanning."
"We like how it can check for issues, including files and web browsers, as it is a full-stack solution for antivirus for personal use and it is pretty effective."
"The antivirus aspect of the solution is very good, and the support we receive from Norton is excellent."
 

Cons

"More hooks and more reporting would be beneficial. More proactive reporting would be ideal."
"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."
"On Mac, it's quite unstable and unusable; however, it's very stable for Windows."
"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."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can use more advertising to promote their features."
"I would like to see improvement from a management perspective. We have had to depend on Intune for certain tasks."
"As far as improvement to the product, perhaps the price could be better."
"The solution can improve the security modules."
"They say Norton Security Premium is an all-in-one solution, but we don't know exactly what's in it, e.g. they didn't make an effort to explain the difference between a virus scan and a ransomware scan."
"Having a dashboard that shows the different functions of Norton Security Premium can convince end users that the software is more than just an antivirus solution. This product offers several features, but end users think that it's just one out of the box solution, because the different functions are not explained in detail."
"I do not find it to be scalable."
"I don't like the password manager of Norton Security Premium. I really dislike it."
"The only problem with Norton Antivirus is that it consumes a lot of resources like CPU and memory in the background."
"Occasionally when you open a ticket, there's a lack of understanding that prevents the solution from being resolved directly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Defender doesn't cost that much. When you use Microsoft technology, you can start with the free version and see how much the technology helps your organization solve security problems before you use the subscription. They also do this pay-as-you-go model, so you only pay when you use it."
"The solution is free."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution. It would be nice if it could be included with the Microsoft Office package."
"The cost is competitive and reasonable because most of the expense is log analytics, storage, and data consumption and ingestion. These things can be throttled and controlled, so they are highly flexible. Defender has a lot of advantages over competing products."
"You do not need to pay any additional costs for antivirus and anti-malware solutions for endpoint protection."
"You just pay Windows 10 prices, then you have antivirus software. As a price comparison, Defender's costs are very low."
"The price of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is reasonable. Other solutions are more expensive, such as ClowdStrike."
"The licensing fee for this solution is not expensive."
"As I have been a long-time customer, I was given a fair price of $49.95 per month for the first four to six months."
"Security Premium is highly-priced."
"We have a yearly license, and each license is around 20 or 30 Jordanian Dinars plus taxes."
"If they could come down in price that would be good. It's not exactly the lowest."
"Pricing for this software is competitive."
"The solution gives the value for the money."
"Security Premium costs around US$100 for three years, which is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise97
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
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Also Known As

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Norton Internet Security
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Temple University
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