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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs ZoneAlarm comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
ZoneAlarm
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
21st
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 June 2026, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.5%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ZoneAlarm is 1.6%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.5%
ZoneAlarm1.6%
Other91.9%
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

"Offers good protection."
"It depends on the licensing. Most of the customers have got at least a 365 E3 license, and they can use most of the features of Windows 10 Defender. So, anyone who has got an enterprise license can start using those features. Some of the customers have got E5 licenses, and they can use all advanced features. Customers with E5 licenses use the advanced site protection (ATP) features and web content filtering without going via a proxy, which gives the benefit of replacing the proxy. They can get the benefit of MCAS and integration with Intune and the endpoint manager. It is a kind of single platform for all 365 technologies. It helps customers in managing everything through a unified portal."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has been awesome, so far."
"Real-time detection and cloud-based delivery of detections are highly efficient."
"Defender provides useful alerts and groups them. It sends an alert to your portal if it detects any malicious activity, and you can group multiple alerts to form an incident."
"When it comes to technical support, I have found Microsoft to be outstanding."
"Defender for Endpoint allows us automatic resolutions if a unit is compromised or if a user clicks a malicious link."
"The most important and the most relevant features of Defender for Endpoint are the malware and ransomware protection."
"ZoneAlarm is one of the best rated security products from Checkpoint, which comprises of inbuilt antivirus, anti spyware, anti phishing, and advanced threat protection features."
"It gives us security for the users' mobiles and ends up protecting us in a significant way."
"The phone access scan stands out as the most valuable feature for me."
"It is quick and easy to configure."
"It is easy to use through interfaces and easy to configure each of the customizations we created based on the characteristics that we wanted."
"The product's most valuable feature is the detection engine due to its ability to identify threats."
"ZoneAlarm protects all computers from viruses, spyware, and hackers."
"The solution maintains reasonable scalability."
 

Cons

"Service Requests. Noncritical cases with MDE technical support teams tend to be queued for over a week before the first customer engagement."
"Like every other security product out there, the stability of Defender for Endpoint is a work in progress."
"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."
"Phishing and Malware detection could be better."
"I think the solution needs to be more on par with other antivirus products in the market."
"One area where the product could be improved is that I don't think it can be used all by itself, if you are working with a business."
"What I've heard from the customers is that the anti-malware engine is not up to date, so sometimes it may not detect such threats."
"The product should reduce updates since it is hard to keep up."
"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."
"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 have used it in the past for personal desktops and for systems at small startups, but I would not recommend it as an enterprise level firewall security solution."
"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."
"They need to update and improve the features available for Mac."
"We'd like better performance of the network equipment. There are high-speed environments where an immediate response is required."
"Updating ZoneAlarm is a problem at times."
"Perhaps the primary area for potential enhancement is to make it faster, ensuring a more seamless experience while maintaining robust security features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an expensive solution."
"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."
"This solution is part of Windows and comes included with it."
"When customers haven't deployed the solution and don't have licenses, it can be expensive to start from scratch."
"Microsoft Defender ATP is expensive."
"The solution is included with Microsoft Windows."
"Most people don't realize M365/E5 licenses are an amazing deal. They think "Oh, it's expensive," and I'll ask, "Compared to what?" If you don't have it you will have to buy licenses for multiple products to fill the same security space that you would have gotten with the Microsoft product. Go figure out how much it costs you per product, per user, and then come back and tell me how things add up financially."
"There are different licenses, such as E3 and E5."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing is reasonable, with a yearly renewal license costing seventy dollars."
"We use the free version of the software, but it can be upgraded to the paid Extreme Security edition."
"This is a freeware product and I recommend using it."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for ZoneAlarm, which is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Hospitality Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

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 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: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.