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Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 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

Acronis Cyber Protect Home ...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (41st)
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) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 10.6%, down from 18.0% 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 Endpoint10.6%
Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office0.8%
Other88.6%
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

BH
Owner at Stoneridge Engineering, LLC
Reliable backup tool ensures quick restoration and peace of mind
I use Acronis for backups. I use it to back up to other drives on the network, back up the entire system, including system images of the Windows C drive and all the data drives. This is for a small business, just myself The reliable tool allows for quick restoration from backup copies, meaning I…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The malware feature is most valuable."
"The reliable tool allows for quick restoration from backup copies, meaning I do not have to reload Windows or programs."
"Acronis schedules in the background and does incremental images so it doesn’t take forever to backup."
"The customer service and support are excellent."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy to load and it runs quietly in the background, unlike other solutions."
"It's pretty easy to use, works with compliance issues, and is reliable."
"Defender works in the background monitoring the traffic for viruses."
"You have endpoint security to keep your devices safe. That's the feature that we're interested in."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has been secure and there is zero maintenance required because it updates with Microsoft Windows."
"The stability is great. I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft."
"File protection is the most valuable feature. Antivirus security on the Level OS, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Guard for 2019."
"There are some competitive products on the market, but the best is Microsoft Defender because it's very easy to integrate. That's one reason a lot of clients want Microsoft Defender. It's also very easy to implement compared to other solutions."
 

Cons

"I originally intended to use Acronis for cloud backup, however, the cloud backup had major problems. After struggling with it for about two years, I switched to Carbonite and have not gone back."
"I had a couple of false positives, but that’s it."
"The configuration needs improvement."
"I originally intended to use Acronis for cloud backup, however, the cloud backup had major problems."
"The price, in general, could always be a little bit cheaper."
"Defender is free for one year. Once that year is over, we will switch to Kaspersky."
"The frequency of the patching, and the frequency of the updates, are not included with the free version."
"Its interface can be improved a little bit. We would like to have some sort of centralization. It should have something like a central server that is managing all the other clients. There are solutions from Kaspersky or ESET NOD32 that are really doing this kind of thing currently. We would like to see something similar from Microsoft."
"Lowering the price would be an improvement."
"Microsoft support could be more knowledgeable."
"The pricing could be a bit better."
"We were not happy that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as a Microsoft product, along with Intune to manage devices, charges this much and still does not provide the information that we are looking for."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We pay a yearly license for Microsoft Defender. We also have a support contract with them."
"The solution is free."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an expensive solution."
"We have an enterprise agreement so from my perspective, this is a product that ships with Windows and it is not priced standalone."
"The solution comes free with Microsoft Windows 10."
"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."
"The solution comes as a part of Windows 10 and it is covered under its license."
"The licensing fee is a function of your Office 365 license. The feature set you get is a function of the license as well. There is probably an E2 version, an E3 version, and an E5 version. There are several versions, and not all features are the same. So, you might want to check what features you're expecting because you might get shocked. If you only have an E3 license, the capability isn't the same."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
35%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Performing Arts
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office?
I originally intended to use Acronis for cloud backup, however, the cloud backup had major problems. After struggling with it for about two years, I switched to Carbonite and have not gone back.
What is your primary use case for Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office?
I use Acronis for backups. I use it to back up to other drives on the network, back up the entire system, including system images of the Windows C drive and all the data drives. This is for a small...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
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