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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

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...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
26th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 5.8%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint5.8%
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection2.0%
Other92.2%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

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.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber SecOps Principal at Dotcom Security
Provides end-to-end antivirus protection and has good stability
Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and device control. It can integrate with other Broadcom solutions, such as Symantec Messaging Gateway and Symantec DLP. If you want to send an email, it gets scanned through endpoint protection and DLP. We get all Symantec functionality in a single pane.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This software is easy to use."
"We had certain compliance and usage issues. For example, our company wanted to go with CIS, but we didn't have a proper way of measuring whether the endpoints have the right standards in place or whether they were compliant with CIS. Microsoft Defender was like a one-stop for most things because it gave us the vulnerability and patching scores so that our vulnerability management teams can focus on covering up the vulnerabilities and the patching team can check the vulnerable versions and deploy the right versions."
"Microsoft's technical support is fantastic."
"We had some problem and, after four hours, we had new signatures for the environment by our customers for more than a thousand clients so that we can protect and improve the new setup."
"It's not really visible for the user - which is a benefit."
"It's free because it comes with Windows."
"The antivirus features are very useful."
"If I didn't have the integrated pieces of Microsoft Defender, to do the same amount and be on top of things, I would probably need two FTEs."
"The most valuable feature is Click-time URL protection."
"The technical support services are excellent."
"The incident management on the solution is very good. You get a lot of detailed information about an incident. You also get a lot of documentation in connection with the CVI or integration."
"Technical support is very responsive. You just have to open a ticket. They respond in a timely manner. Their response is good. I'm satisfied."
"What I like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is its notification capability."
"This is a good solution, and whatever our requirement is, all of the features are there."
"They have a very simple and easy implementation; they have been around for a long time, and they have been very easy to deploy, support, and manage."
"Overall, the product supports everything already feature-wise, because it has email protection, monitoring detection, network intrusion detection, and advanced threat protection."
 

Cons

"Our team's knowledge of the solution needs to be improved, and Microsoft could do a better job conveying the necessary information to users. We could proactively use the tool more and explore capabilities we are not yet utilizing."
"The integration and effectiveness of email security could be better. It's already built-in to the solution and checks emails, scans the links they contain etc."
"The UI for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint needs to be better. Integration with client dashboards is also lacking in this product, e.g. client dashboards shouldn't just be viewable from the cloud, because when the client's computer is offline, you won't be able to see the client dashboard."
"My main issue with the tool is that there are too many menus."
"Defender for Endpoint is complex, and the documentation is detailed. At the same time, it's hard to navigate sometimes. You have to go through tons of documentation to find what you want."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender a seven out of 10 because of its lack of usability for an MSP and its lack of telemetry information, but it is useful, and it does stop ransomware."
"I would appreciate agentic protection as an additional feature in the next release to protect the agents that the business creates."
"The dashboards could be better."
"It should be able to collect information if the agent is disabled."
"An improvement could be made on the reporting because then it would be easier to collect information and submit it for compliance."
"The support has dropped down to a five out of ten."
"Entire threat protection is not available for the advanced features."
"There are limits with respect to blocking files by hash value or blocking IP addresses, and these limits should be removed."
"There are some ‎features that would add value to this product. One of them would be a graphical presentation of threats that the system has encountered."
"The administration interface needs a lot of improvement. It should be UI based, and simple. They need to improve it. It's pretty much not that friendly compared to what we were using as Bitdefender before. It's okay but is improving, actually."
"One area for improvement could be the pricing model."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is about three euros, which is considered reasonably priced."
"You don't need to worry about the renewal and purchase of antivirus products. It is bundled with Windows 10, so you don't need to worry about separately purchasing any antiviruses."
"The price is fair for the features Microsoft delivers. If you want tailor-made features, you have to mix different licenses. It isn't straightforward."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes with Windows 10, and it's free. But for you to be able to manage it in the cloud and use the console, you need to have either an Office 365 E5 subscription or a Microsoft M365 subscription. You need to buy an extra license."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"When customers haven't deployed the solution and don't have licenses, it can be expensive to start from scratch."
"I do not have to purchase antivirus solutions anymore because Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is integrated into Windows and comes free."
"This is an expensive product and licensing for all Microsoft products is a big issue."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
"The price is quite expensive."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise96
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

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 ...
What needs improvement with Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
One area for improvement could be the pricing model. Future releases could further enhance integration capabilities with other platforms and simplify the licensing model to compete more with Micros...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
Our primary use case for the product is to provide advanced threat protection to our clients, primarily in the banking and financial sectors.
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
Symantec ATP has proven to be a reliable and effective solution. I rate it a nine out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.