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Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 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
7.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint boosts efficiency, increases productivity by up to 10%, and provides cost savings with quick threat response and integration.
Sentiment score
7.2
Users report positive ROI from Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, citing cost savings, improved security, and effective system integration.
The return on investment is primarily in time savings and better observability of what's happening.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Cisco Secure Endpoint's customer support is praised for responsiveness, knowledge, and effective assistance, although some experience slow response times.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's support is generally reliable, with mixed reviews on response time and resolution quality.
I rate Microsoft support 10 out of 10.
Due to our size, we don't have access to direct technical support, but the knowledge base, Microsoft Learn, and the articles available are really good.
The level-one support seems disconnected from subject matter experts.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.8
Cisco Secure Endpoint offers scalable, easy deployment across varied environments, enhanced by SecureX integration, requiring minimal management effort.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers scalable integration and cloud-based management, but customization may need extra tools in complex settings.
We managed to scale it out in a short amount of time, with two months of planning and three months of implementation on 10,000 computers.
Defender's scalability is phenomenal, and it's going to be one of the keys to resolving issues for the SOC.
It's pretty easy to scale with Microsoft, as they make it easy if you look into the documentation.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
5.8
Cisco Secure Endpoint is highly stable and reliable, with minimal issues, consistently praised across large deployments.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is stable, integrates well with Windows, but occasionally has configuration and memory issues.
I rate Defender 10 out of 10 for stability.
Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable.
I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint needs better integration, streamlined dashboard, improved support, enhanced malware filtering, AI integration, and competitive pricing.
Users criticize Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's complex interface, limited integration, and request enhancements in analytics, protection, and support.
Repeated interactions are necessary due to Level One's lack of tools and knowledge, hindering efficient problem-solving and negatively impacting our experience with Microsoft support.
We have multiple endpoints, and we want to look for signals across tenants.
An additional feature that could be included in the next release is free Copilot.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers flexible, justified pricing from $2-$3 per endpoint, with savings through Enterprise Agreement bundling.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers flexible, cost-effective pricing, especially in E5 bundles, adapting to various enterprise licensing needs.
Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs.
The pricing, setup, and licensing were very easy and simple.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides robust malware protection and threat analytics with integration and automation features for enhanced endpoint security.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides comprehensive cybersecurity with seamless integration, robust threat analytics, and efficient management across platforms without performance impact.
Defender for Endpoint's coverage across different platforms in our environment is pretty good. We have devices running Linux, Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and Android. It covers all of them.
Attack surface reduction and limiting attack surface vectors are valuable features.
The notification and reporting features are most valuable because we are part of a compliance project, and maintaining SOC 2 compliance is critical.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
13th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
190
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.5%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 11.3%, down from 15.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Mark Broughton - PeerSpot reviewer
Tighter integration with Umbrella and Firepower gave us eye-opening information
We were using a third-party help desk. One of the ways that they were fixing problems was to delete the client and then add the client back if there was an issue where the client had stopped communicating. Any improvement in the client communicating back to the server would be good, particularly for machines that are offline for a couple of weeks. A lot of our guys were working on a rotation where the machine might be offline for that long. They were also terrible about rebooting their machines, so those network connections didn't necessarily get refreshed. So, anything that could improve that communication would be good. Also, an easier way to do deduplication of machines, or be alerted to the fact that there's more than one instance of a machine, would be useful. If you could say, "Okay, we've got these two machines. This one says it's not reporting and this one says it's been reporting. Obviously, somebody did a reinstall," it would help. That way you could get a more accurate device count, so you're not having an inflated number. Not that Cisco was going to come down on you and say, "Oh, you're using too many licenses," right away. But to have a much more accurate license usage count by being able to better dedupe the records would be good. I also sent over a couple of other ideas to our technical rep. A lot of that had to do with the reporting options. It would be really nice to be able to do a lot more in the reporting. You can't really drill down into the reports that are there. The reporting and the need for the documentation to be updated and current would be my two biggest areas of complaint. Also, there was one section when I was playing with the automation where it was asking for the endpoint type rather than the machine name. If I could have just put in the machine name, that would have been great. So there are some opportunities, when it comes to searching, to have more options. If I wanted to search, for example, by a Mac address because, for some reason, I thought there was a duplication and I didn't have the machine name, how could I pull it up with the Mac address? When you're getting to that level, you're really starting to get into the ticky tacky. I would definitely put the reporting and documentation way ahead of that.
AnuragSrivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detailed visibility into threats but the ability to add exceptions needs improvement
One major item for improvement is the ability to add exceptions. We can add some exceptions, but not at the level we need to. The second major area for improvement involves enhanced capabilities for different operating systems or platforms. That is, even though we have coverage for different operating systems or platforms such as Linux, we don't get all of the controls and enhanced capabilities that are available with Windows devices. Reporting could also be improved because, at present, we get limited results at times. For example, in an environment with more than 100,000 devices, you may just get 10,000 results when you run a report.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Endpoint?
The product's initial setup phase was very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Endpoint?
I am not entirely sure about the exact licensing cost. It ranges from 2,000 to 2,500 INR annually.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Previously, there were options to uninstall the agent without a password if you had admin access, and this could be improved. It may require a password for uninstalling clients, which would be help...
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

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Learn More

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Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Endpoint vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.