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Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender XDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.2
Check Point Harmony Endpoint users see fewer security incidents, reduced team size, improved compliance, and significant efficiency and cost benefits.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Defender XDR offers cost savings, enhanced security, and efficiency by consolidating measures, reducing cyberattack losses, and streamlining processes.
The product is affordable and provides excellent coverage and protection across multiple platforms.
Ever since we turned on the M5 feature set back in June, we have seen a reduced number of potentially malicious clicks and faster alerting when incidents occur.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.9
Check Point Harmony Endpoint support is praised for responsiveness, but some note slow response times and limited communication methods.
Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Defender XDR support varies; larger organizations benefit more, with issues in responsiveness and knowledge sharing for smaller companies.
Only email support is available, leading to delays in getting assistance.
Their support was helpful enough for me to give them a seven out of ten.
You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.
It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.
The technical support from Microsoft Defender XDR has been disappointingly slow.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.8
Check Point Harmony Endpoint is praised for easy scalability across environments, flexible adaptation, central management, and seamless operation.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender XDR offers scalable solutions for diverse organizations, with strengths in cloud setups and dashboard management despite some challenges.
Check Point Harmony Endpoint is scalable, suitable for both small and large companies.
It possesses high scalability because it is a SaaS solution from the cloud, allowing expansion as needed.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Check Point Harmony Endpoint is praised for its reliability, easy implementation, and stable performance with minimal resource impact.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender XDR is praised for stability and reliability, with minor issues quickly resolved and high user satisfaction.
The stability of the tool is high, as I have not experienced any downtime.
The service has remained consistently online, with any issues isolated to specific components, suggesting a well-designed and modular architecture.
The services within our ecosystem have been reliable, meeting their SLAs.
 

Room For Improvement

Check Point Harmony Endpoint requires better Unix compatibility, improved integration, deployment ease, cost efficiency, intuitive UI, and security enhancements.
Microsoft Defender XDR needs faster scanning, better integration, simpler licensing, and improved automation for user-friendly threat management.
Better technical support would enhance the product's competitiveness.
One area that requires improvement is the amount of audit logs the system can save, as it is currently limited to fourteen days.
Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.
The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.
It would be better if much of that information were immediately visible, especially when looking at endpoints or users.
 

Setup Cost

Check Point Harmony Endpoint provides cost-effective, flexible licensing with robust security, appealing to both small and large enterprises.
Microsoft Defender XDR is cost-effective with an E5 bundle but costly separately, influenced by complex licensing and geographic factors.
It is not expensive and provides comprehensive coverage.
Pricing is a bit expensive but justified by the product’s features, capabilities, and scalability.
I would rate the pricing as eight out of ten, indicating it is a reasonable cost for the product.
Microsoft purposefully obfuscates this through marketing ploys to hide costs.
The pricing is a little high, however, it is on par with other competitive tools in the market.
 

Valuable Features

Check Point Harmony Endpoint offers robust features including anti-ransomware, threat prevention, easy deployment, and comprehensive endpoint security with centralized management.
Microsoft Defender XDR offers seamless integration, advanced threat hunting, and AI protection, streamlining operations and reducing costs.
Endpoint protection is valuable.
Harmony Endpoint has a geo policy that allows me to see where users log in from, enabling me to analyze if someone tries to access an account from another location.
With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.
From an attack chain perspective, Defender XDR handles phishing and spam emails easily, while Defender for Endpoint manages endpoints effectively.
It's because endpoint management is my primary focus, and this feature integrates well with my other skills.
 

Categories and Ranking

Check Point Harmony Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (6th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Check Point Harmony Endpoint is 2.7%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 3.5%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Alejandro Flores. - PeerSpot reviewer
Good visibility with cloud centralized management and several layers of security
There are some "weak points" that have to be mentioned, including: 1) If the IT department is used to "cloning" endpoints (making images) you are going to have a hard time trying to install the product and you are going to end up reading a lot of Check Point documents. 2) If you are used to the granularity of roles features in Check Point Quantums products you are going to be a little bit disappointed. You can't set customized roles with customized read/write permissions. 3) You need a mature security team to manage this solution in order to get the most value from it.
Gabor Nyerd - PeerSpot reviewer
Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot
We found that sometimes integrations work, but testing them can take some time. Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected. We have a configuration in place that needs to be synchronized with another server. However, the servers are four hours apart, so this can cause delays. In general, I believe that the time it takes to configure and test a service should be shorter. Sometimes, it can take a couple of hours to test a single configuration setting. Other times, it is only ten or fifteen minutes, which is normal. However, sometimes, even immediate actions can be triggered by configuration changes, and some settings can take up to eight hours to complete. I believe that this time can be improved. Microsoft is making a lot of improvements to its services in a short period of time. This is a good thing, as it means that the services are constantly being updated and improved. However, it can be challenging for customers to keep up with the changes. For example, a customer may read about an update, understand it, and share it with their colleagues and boss. However, it may take days or weeks to test the update and get the necessary approvals. This can be especially challenging for large customers with many users or machines. In some cases, Microsoft may change a service before the customer has had a chance to implement the previous update. This can be frustrating for customers, as it means that they have to constantly learn new things and adjust their workflows. On the one hand, it is important for Microsoft to keep updating and improving its services. This helps to ensure that the services are meeting the customers' needs and that they are staying ahead of the competition. Microsoft should also be mindful of the challenges that these changes can create for customers. One way to address this challenge is to provide customers with more time to implement changes. Microsoft could also provide more information about upcoming changes so that customers can plan ahead. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to strike a balance between keeping its services up-to-date and providing customers with a smooth transition to new features.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Check Point Harmony Endpoint?
The platform's most valuable features are the ability to build API, which meets our business requirements, and the VPN client, which provides VPN access from a single client.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Harmony Endpoint?
Pricing is a bit expensive but justified by the product’s features, capabilities, and scalability. It is suitable for enterprises but can be challenging to position for small to medium customers.
What needs improvement with Check Point Harmony Endpoint?
Support needs improvement. Currently, support is primarily via email, which leads to longer response times. Fine-tuning for applications and better support from Harmony would be helpful, especially...
What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
Licensing is somewhat confusing, particularly when presenting our pitch decks to stakeholders and leveraging key features in premium SKUs, but we managed with some assistance from Microsoft.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
It would be beneficial to reduce the number of clicks required to navigate between blades, as the current navigation and breadcrumb system can be a bit confusing. Some inconsistencies exist between...
 

Also Known As

Check Point Endpoint Security, Endpoint Security, Check Point SandBlast Agent
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Boston Properties, Independence Care System, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), Courtagen Life Sciences, Carmel Partners
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
839,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.