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Microsoft Defender for Business vs WatchGuard EPDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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
8.1
Microsoft Defender boosts ROI by enhancing productivity, consolidating costs, and integrating services for better security and time efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.0
WatchGuard EPDR delivers strong performance, enhancing security and productivity while offering cost-effective, comprehensive threat protection and efficient endpoint management.
Using Microsoft Defender for Business results in cost reductions as it consolidates various features under one product, saving around 20% to 30% of the budget.
It is pretty good because it offers various features such as Exchange, OfficeSuite, OneDrive, and SharePoint.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.7
Microsoft Defender for Business support is generally effective, though experiences vary in response times, expertise, and communication quality.
Sentiment score
8.6
WatchGuard EPDR support is valued for excellent technical assistance, effective forums, and reliable service with minimal issues reported.
It is rated ten out of ten for its quality and assistance.
The onboarding support is exceptional, ensuring seamless integration and implementation.
There are challenges with the knowledge and experience of the support staff.
They create a case, tell me to refer to articles, and if not resolved, they take a remote session to solve the issue.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Microsoft Defender for Business is a scalable, cloud-driven solution efficiently supporting diverse organizations and thousands of users, despite some configuration delays.
Sentiment score
8.3
WatchGuard EPDR is scalable, efficiently manages workloads, offers centralized deployment, easy licensing, and robustly supports expanding needs.
The cloud-based nature of the solution ensures high scalability.
The scalability of Microsoft Defender for Business is rated as ten, indicating it is very scalable.
In terms of scalability, I find Microsoft Defender for Business to be good and reliable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender for Business is highly stable, reliable, and rated highly for performance, with minimal minor bug issues reported.
Sentiment score
8.1
WatchGuard EPDR is praised for its stability, reliable performance, and efficiency in threat management, meeting user expectations consistently.
No customer complaints about its functionality or reliability.
Threat detection capabilities could be improved.
It is very stable with no hanging problems.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Business has usability challenges, lacks integration, and needs improved detection, support, and configuration options.
WatchGuard EPDR requires competitive pricing, enhanced features, better integration, improved antivirus, and refined web filtering for Latin America.
Microsoft should provide batch management solutions with the application, integrating pass management with roles.
Features related to Advanced Persistent Threat detection vectors and cyber kill chain integrations are not available out-of-the-box.
There can be improvements in the user interface to make it more intuitive.
Other firewalls allow adding categories and in-app controls which WatchGuard currently lacks.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Business offers competitive security solutions but can be costly for small organizations, with better pricing for nonprofits.
WatchGuard EPDR pricing is seen as justified and competitive, offering value compared to alternatives like Palo Alto XDR.
Single-year pricing remains good.
The pricing is quite affordable at the enterprise level with no extra expenses noted.
The package with Business Premium is good for what you get for the price.
The pricing is slightly high, but the product quality justifies it.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Business offers strong security, integration, and ease of use, ideal for small and medium-sized businesses.
WatchGuard EPDR offers zero-trust security, AI alerts, patch management, and excels in ransomware handling and application-based configurations.
The threat detection capabilities are robust, with a dedicated research team and a continuously updated threat feed.
Its vulnerability management is regarded as one of the best in the industry.
The most effective features of Microsoft Defender for Business include its threat detection and response capabilities in managing vulnerabilities and ransomware attacks.
The cloud of WatchGuard lets me see all my devices, updating me to minute levels with detailed information, such as patch status and vulnerabilities.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (15th)
WatchGuard EPDR
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
44th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (35th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 1.9%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard EPDR is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Vincent Gagnon - PeerSpot reviewer
Better security with comprehensive features but has a high cost
I have a lot of clients and I use Microsoft Defender for Business when we have certain types of licenses. It comes with Microsoft Business Premium. However, it is not available for many of my clients due to the high license cost, which makes it difficult to sell. I have a couple of clients who use…
Phillip Evely - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good reporting features, saves time, and protects endpoints
The setup is very easy. We have deployed the solution on-premise but can also do it on the cloud. It has a cloud functionality. I can push it from the cloud directly to the endpoint, or I can do it via a group policy. The enterprise-wide deployment takes a day. It is very simple. Once the agent is deployed in any subnet, it monitors the network traffic and informs me about endpoints that don't have the agent. I get alerted via a report. If I have a problem, I can manually deploy on those endpoints. The product is set to auto-update. It updates on its own.
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841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Retailer
6%
Government
6%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Non Profit
7%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Business?
A few things are valuable. One is the alerting we see when any kind of intrusion is happening, any kind of malware is being deployed across the endpoints, or any kind of suspicious activity is goin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?
The package with Business Premium is good for what you get for the price. The standalone license's cost is a bit higher, and I would rate it as an eight out of ten for pricing.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?
It is not quick to make exclusions or specific configurations compared to other antiviruses on the market. It is less quick than Microsoft Defender or other antivirus solutions.
What do you like most about WatchGuard EPDR?
The product's most valuable features are the zero-trust application service and its capability to detect threats and attacks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WatchGuard EPDR?
The pricing is slightly high, but the product quality justifies it. The price is fair, neither too high nor too low. Considering all its features, an increase in price would be justifiable.
What needs improvement with WatchGuard EPDR?
I have not found anything requiring improvement. However, overall, the category level should be enhanced. The categories in the web filtering should be more comprehensive. When a URL is not categor...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Business vs. WatchGuard EPDR and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.