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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs ZoneAlarm comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

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
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)
ZoneAlarm
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 9.1%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ZoneAlarm is 2.4%, up from 2.1% 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%
ZoneAlarm2.4%
Other88.5%
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.
Bala_Krishna - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at esupport Solutions Pvt ltd
Security suite has protected individual devices from threats, while installation and network features require improvements
BIG-IP is actually the LTM, Link Load Balancer, which comes with ASM, meaning Application Security Module. It consists of multiple modules, such as ASM, SWG, and a domain DNS manager. ZoneAlarm allows defining trusted and public networks, which helps maintain security in public Wi-Fi environments. It offers comprehensive protection, securing PCs against threats. Users do not experience any system slowdowns while scanning. Harmony Browser protects all your browsing activity and is bundled with Harmony Endpoint and Harmony Connect. It provides a small but effective security layer and sometimes comes packaged with the larger Harmony suite.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It shows us the risky sign-ins, and if a user's password has been compromised."
"It is a straightforward setup."
"Defender should be fine for home use. It has all the basic functionality you need. I can't speak to how well it works as an enterprise solution because I'm not in the space."
"We have liked the fact that it comes with Microsoft Windows 10 and it is constantly updated with all new virus definitions. It is also updated with new security features on a regular basis."
"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."
"We are able to productively integrate with existing on-prem, hybrid, or cloud applications."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to effectively detect threats. It has the EDR feature, endpoint detection and response, and that is very good."
"This software is easy to use."
"The solution maintains reasonable scalability."
"It is quick and easy to configure."
"Personally, I find the Game Mode of the Firewall very useful."
"It gives us security for the users' mobiles and ends up protecting us in a significant way."
"This antivirus is regularly updated, and the updates can be scheduled."
"The phone access scan stands out as the most valuable feature for me."
"ZoneAlarm protects all computers from viruses, spyware, and hackers."
"The product's most valuable feature is the detection engine due to its ability to identify threats."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can use more advertising to promote their features."
"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."
"The detection of viruses could be a little bit better."
"The frequency of the patching, and the frequency of the updates, are not included with the free version."
"It needs to improve the cybersecurity for lateral movements. For example, when a hacker tries to enter a machine, they try to get the password by doing a lateral movement."
"It can be more secure."
"It's not quite a mature solution just yet. It needs more time to grow and develop."
"Right now, the solution provides some recommendations on the dashboard but we don't have any priorities. It's a mix of all the vulnerabilities and all the security recommendations. I would like to see some priority or categorization of high, medium, and low so that we can fix the high ones first."
"They should release a single update with all the necessary characteristics to avoid being in a cycle of consecutive updates."
"Some of our users say that the interface is a little bit outdated for 2020, and want it to be more modern and cozy."
"I would like it to be integrated with the Check Point centralization solution like Infinity Portal. It would be great to be able to manage it through the same website."
"The solution's efficiency in threat containment and overall protection needs improvement."
"ZoneAlarm should be a light application that does not take too much memory in mobile phones."
"Currently, the client is only available for the Windows Operating System but it would be good if it were released for Mac OS as well."
"Perhaps the primary area for potential enhancement is to make it faster, ensuring a more seamless experience while maintaining robust security features."
"We'd like better performance of the network equipment. There are high-speed environments where an immediate response is required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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.""
"Buying individual point products would've cost us a lot more money than one integrated solution that also capitalizes on Teams Voice and things of that nature. Given our size, buying individual products would have easily cost us a million dollars."
"Licenses depend upon what you are looking for and what kind of security do you want to implement. There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. When we used to buy Symantec, we used to spend on 100 licenses. We used to spend approximately $2,700 for those many licenses, and they came in packs. To add one more license, I had to buy a pack with a minimum of 10 licenses. I had to spend on nine extra licenses because I can't get a single license, whereas when we go for Microsoft, we can get as many licenses as we want. If I have 100 users today, and tomorrow, I have 90 users, I can release my 10 licenses next month. With any other software vendor, you buy licenses for one year, and you have to stick with that. If today you have 100 licenses, and tomorrow, you have 50, you have already paid for one year's license. You can't go back and tell them that I don't require these 50 licenses because I have lost my 50 users, but with Microsoft Defender, licensing is on a monthly basis. It gives you both options. You can go yearly and save on it, or you can go monthly. You will, again, save on it. It is very fair everywhere."
"We are using the free version."
"The cost is high for E5 licenses, but if we go with the E3 license, most of the features are not covered."
"AV solutions are pretty expensive because they are necessary, not just for protection, but many businesses need them to comply with regulatory bodies and receive accreditation. We recently purchased an E5 license, which gives us access to the entire Microsoft suite. I would say the pricing is competitive; most tools of this kind are similarly priced. There are minor differences between the competitors, but they aren't spectacularly different. Defender for Endpoint makes sense because all our solutions are in the same place, paid for with a single license. The subscription price is around £50 per user per month, though it may have increased slightly."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is more affordable compared to some other endpoint solutions."
"The price for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is about three euros, which is considered reasonably priced."
"We use the free version of the software, but it can be upgraded to the paid Extreme Security edition."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for ZoneAlarm, which is cheap."
"The pricing is reasonable, with a yearly renewal license costing seventy dollars."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"This is a freeware product and I recommend using it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Hospitality Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ZoneAlarm?
ZoneAlarm has an acceptable price. Not much detail can be provided as I am not the one to judge the price.
What needs improvement with ZoneAlarm?
Check Point support needs improvement. Currently rated at 9 out of 10, more support is required. There are some concerns on support that need addressing. The integration of new products with their ...
What is your primary use case for ZoneAlarm?
I work with vendors such as F5 and deal with F5 as a reseller. I work with F5 BIG-IP regarding F5 Shape Security. BIG-IP Advanced WAF is what I work with regarding BIG-IP DNS or BIG-IP AFM. Advance...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Terma, Optix, Samsung Research Amercia, SF Police Credit Union, Independence Care System, Mattias Thomsen, Carmel Partners, Desert Research Institute, CRIF, FXCM Inc, US State Agency
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. ZoneAlarm and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.