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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Symantec Protection Engine comparison

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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

Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
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) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Agentic Endpoint Security (1st)
Symantec Protection Engine
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
18th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.0%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Protection Engine is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.0%
Symantec Protection Engine0.7%
Other93.3%
Anti-Malware Tools
 

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.
Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at Kyndryl
Real-time file security has reduced incident tickets and improves threat detection accuracy
The best features of Symantec Protection Engine include machine learning, file reputation, and real-time scanning. It efficiently handles heavy loads through ICAP and cloud-based processing, reducing the burden on endpoints compared to Trend Micro and other endpoint security solutions. Its centralized control is also noteworthy. Through machine learning, it detects both known and unknown malware and malicious URLs, in addition to performing signature-based scans that assist SOC teams in analysis. The solution is highly effective in leveraging both machine learning and file reputation. Regarding centralized control, it offers a unified management console for policy deployment and provides real-time visibility through dashboards, helping save significant administrative time. Symantec Protection Engine has had a positive impact on our organization by enhancing our overall security posture. It effectively blocks a high volume of file-based threats across more than 200 servers, saves SOC analysts time in endpoint remediation, and streamlines compliance processes. It further strengthens security through real-time scanning and machine learning-based quarantine, blocking phishing payloads in SharePoint uploads before they reach endpoints, thereby reducing incidents by 30–40% compared to signature-only tools.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is different from other security tools because we can configure it to use multiple types of scanning or archiving."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it is embedded into the Windows system. Additionally, the performance is good and simple to maintain."
"Overall, I was pretty impressed by it."
"It is quite stable. We have not had any cases, i.e., viruses, that would require a reboot, etc. We have never had a situation where we needed to reinstall the tools as a result of the Defender application or a feature being corrupt."
"I've started to test it from the security point of view. There are plenty of features that are interesting, but at this time, the XDR functionality is most valuable. It is endpoint security on steroids."
"There are several features that have helped to improve our security posture at the prevention level, such as the attack surface reduction controls and the exploit prevention control."
"Real-time detection and cloud-based delivery of detections are highly efficient."
"One of the main features is the solution is very light on resources and we do not have any problems with it."
"The operational efficiency with the high-performance scanning of Symantec Protection Engine is very good."
"Symantec Protection Engine's been a game-changer for us at Kantar—blocks like 80-85% of file-based threats right at the gateway before they hit our 200 servers, cutting down endpoint incidents big time."
"What I appreciate in Symantec Protection Engine is the Virtual Policy Manager (VPM) and the Application Name feature, which are really effective."
"Symantec Protection Engine has improved my security posture by helping me identify potentially malicious files before they reach users or critical systems, and the automated scanning process has also reduced manual efforts for my team, allowing us to focus on other security tasks and respond to threats more efficiently."
"Symantec Protection Engine provides me with the option of both cloud and on-premise solutions, which stands out for both me and my clients."
"The biggest advantage of Symantec Protection Engine is that one tool protects all, and it is centrally managed."
"The best features that I like the most include the threat intelligence network, which is effective in protecting against evolving threats."
"Symantec Protection Engine is a cheaper and rock-solid product where basic anti-spam features and threat intelligence are needed."
 

Cons

"Defender’s GUI can be optimized. The console needs to be more refined."
"The interface could be improved."
"The solution needs to improve its ransomware. It's not so good. It could also use some general performance optimization for the computers the solution operates on, to ensure it does not slow down the devices."
"The log searches for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are pretty difficult to navigate. It needs a better UI or more intuitive search and filter mechanisms to make it easy to get through and filter through all the data logs."
"The central console needs improvement."
"It could be easier when it comes to managing exceptions."
"It would be nice to have a paid upgrade that would provide additional screening of the day-to-day activities."
"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."
"I have concerns about scalability."
"For the improvement of Symantec Protection Engine, the engine did not work with their basic engine when I was working, which was almost three or four years before."
"While I have mentioned many advantages of Symantec Protection Engine, there are areas for improvement, particularly the dashboard features."
"I would like to see improvements in reporting and troubleshooting capabilities for Symantec Protection Engine, as more detailed insights and simplified diagnostics would make day-to-day administration easier."
"Price is a significant area for improvement. The pricing is quite expensive, and it is particularly high for regular customers."
"We have scenarios in which Symantec Protection Engine misses some threats, spam, and targeted attacks that Proofpoint can catch with AI security features."
"To improve Symantec Protection Engine, I suggest simplifying its integration with other tools, as it is more complex compared to Trend Micro and CrowdStrike."
"As for pricing, I would say it is a little expensive compared to competitors, and I think the vendor could achieve more market growth if the pricing were more reasonable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is built into Windows 10. If our clients are using Microsoft Defender, the cost goes away for them."
"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."
"Pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is competitive. Out of the bundle, you will get a lot of security, if I talk about Microsoft E5, for example, and get a lot of benefits. If the customer goes and purchases a different solution, it will cost more, so pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is quite reasonable at the moment. There isn't any challenge in terms of pricing, for example, I didn't see a customer who pulled back because of the price. Some prices could be negotiable, and sometimes, as a sales point, the two become negotiable, but they don't bill one and pull back because of the pricing. If you have an E5 license, you get everything."
"Everybody would like to see a lower price on everything. The Slovenian market is basically an SME market with clients having up to 100 seat licenses, comprising 90% of the company. They're very price sensitive. So, the price could be cheaper."
"This is an expensive product and licensing for all Microsoft products is a big issue."
"The solution comes as a part of Windows 10 and it is covered under its license."
"We are required to pay for the data we ingest, and increasing the data amount incurs additional expenses."
"It is so expensive. It isn't cheaper than McAfee or other solutions."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Healthcare Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
 

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 Business3
Large Enterprise4
 

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 Protection Engine?
For emerging threats, content scanning is not enough anymore. We recently started talking about alternative products such as Proofpoint or other mail gateways which have AI features. Symantec is la...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Protection Engine?
Customers prefer Symantec Protection Engine for the licensing fees over the alternatives. The product has basic protection which is a bit lower than expectations recently, but it is an adequate pro...
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Symantec Protection Engine and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
916,771 professionals have used our research since 2012.