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Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

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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 Iden...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (6th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st)
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
24th
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 September 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 3.6%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.1%, 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 Identity3.6%
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection2.1%
Other94.3%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

CM
Technology Coordinator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Helps detect threats faster and prioritize critical security tasks with increased visibility
The feature I value most about Microsoft Defender for Identity is the ability to see where people are attempting to log in from. Microsoft Defender for Identity helps me automate routine tasks and find alerts that I set up to receive, so it helps me get where I'm trying to go easier and faster. I can see where everything is at. Microsoft Defender for Identity helps me prioritize important tasks. If I get an alert for a user who downloaded an application that is not sanctioned, I normally go straight to that user's computer device to find the device name and the user. Now I can get to them much faster. Microsoft Defender for Identity saves me time overall. I can quantify the time saved by Microsoft Defender for Identity as maybe 25 minutes, or if expressed as a percentage, maybe 20 to 25%. Some of the learning curve and actually learning what these products do takes time to figure out. Microsoft Defender for Identity definitely helps decrease the time of detection and response.
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

"The solution’s alerting is fairly efficient."
"We do not see any issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Identity. I can say it is 100% stable."
"The basic security monitoring at its core feature is the most valuable aspect. But also the investigative parts, the historical logging of events over the network are extremely interesting because it gives an in-depth insight into the history of account activity that is really easy to read, easy to follow, and easy to export."
"All the integration it has with different Microsoft packages, like Teams and Office, is good."
"The feature I like the most about Defender for Identity is the entity tags. They give you the ability to identify sensitive accounts, devices, and groups. You also have honeytoken entities, which are devices that are identified as "bait" for fraudulent actors."
"We use AD Connect to sync on-premises AD to Azure AD, and so far, it has been effective."
"Defender for Identity has not affected the end-user experience."
"I think that for a defensive view, it can give most administrators absolutely amazing insight into what's happening in the network that they probably never had before."
"Their integrations are pretty good as are their Sandbox solutions, their proxies, and their LTAs with API or ICAP protocols."
"It has certainly helped out our audit efforts because we each stay compliant in terms of various security standards."
"The stability is excellent."
"Overall, the product supports everything already feature-wise, because it has email protection, monitoring detection, network intrusion detection, and advanced threat protection."
"This is a good solution, and whatever our requirement is, all of the features are there."
"The product integrates well with our systems, and we have not encountered any problems."
"Endpoint to network is a good feature, it can protect the line."
"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."
 

Cons

"The documentation provided by Microsoft is often seen as a waste of time."
"Feedback on sync issues with the Microsoft portal highlighted its slow nature, with syncs sometimes taking eight hours."
"And when you are working in a priority IP address, Identity is not able to know that those IPs are from the company. It sees that the IPs are from Taiwan or from Hong Kong or from India, even though they are internal IPs, resulting in a lot of false positives."
"The solution could be better at using group-managed access and they could replace it with broad-based access controls."
"One potential area for improvement could be exploring flexibility in the installation of Microsoft Defender for Identity agents."
"The solution could improve how it handles on-premises Android-related attacks."
"They should improve the automation for impossible travel detection. When connected to Wi-Fi and then to VPN, the system sometimes interprets the IP address change as impossible travel."
"The configuration process is time-consuming, with installation taking two minutes but prerequisites requiring two hours."
"There are limits with respect to blocking files by hash value or blocking IP addresses, and these limits should be removed."
"They could enhance the solution to work across all devices, including Android, iOS, and Mac, and make it more user-friendly."
"The support for new OSs and older OSs could be a little tighter. They need to be more upfront about what protection services they're going to provide on new OSs. I haven't seen the Windows 11 version out yet. It is either already released in Beta, or the Beta will be released soon. There could be a little bit more advanced updates on what they're doing to help protect Windows 11 environments. They can let us know in advance so that we know it is going to be protected. We can't roll out the new OS without putting end-point protection on it. So, they should tell us what is their support model for that, and what are they doing to protect Windows 11. They're not telling me, and that's a criticism. The same issue is applicable to all the other antivirus tools. It is not just Symantec; all of them have this problem."
"It also needs network-based threat protection for shared folders and files."
"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."
"Solutions like CrowdStrike, ESET, and SentinelOne have really jumped ahead on behavioral and algorithm-based detection capabilities. Symantec is trying to catch up, but they still have some limitations of being an old-school AV protection program and adding AI and behavioral learning and detection algorithm."
"Scalability could be better."
"The administration interface needs a lot of improvement. It should be UI-based and simple."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender for Identity comes as part of the Microsoft E5 licensing stack."
"Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."
"The product is costly, and we had multiple discussions with accounting to receive a discounted rate. However, on the open market, the tool is expensive."
"It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."
"You won't be able to change your tenants from where you deploy them. For example, if you select Canada, they will charge you based on Canadian pricing. If you are also in London, when you deploy in Canada, the pound is higher than Canadian dollars, but your platform resources are billable in Canadian dollars. Using your pounds to pay for any of these things will be cheaper. Or, if you deploy in London, they will charge you based on your local currency."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
"The price is quite expensive."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I really would have to sit down to think about how Microsoft Defender for Identity can be improved. I didn't take stock in what needs to be improved because I appreciated having the tools right the...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Identity include Conditional Access, checking risky users, remediating risky users, and user sign-ins. I can easily remediate or determine what the user...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I don't really use Microsoft Defender for Identity a lot because my new role doesn't allow me to take time to do so. I don't really use the threat intelligence feature of Microsoft Defender for Ide...
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Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.