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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs ZoneAlarm comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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 Endp...
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
ZoneAlarm
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.9%, down from 16.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ZoneAlarm is 1.7%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.9%
ZoneAlarm1.7%
Other91.4%
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Bala_Krishna - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at esupport Solutions Pvt ltd
Security suite has protected individual devices from threats, while installation and network features require improvements
BIG-IP is actually the LTM, Link Load Balancer, which comes with ASM, meaning Application Security Module. It consists of multiple modules, such as ASM, SWG, and a domain DNS manager. ZoneAlarm allows defining trusted and public networks, which helps maintain security in public Wi-Fi environments. It offers comprehensive protection, securing PCs against threats. Users do not experience any system slowdowns while scanning. Harmony Browser protects all your browsing activity and is bundled with Harmony Endpoint and Harmony Connect. It provides a small but effective security layer and sometimes comes packaged with the larger Harmony suite.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you have a mid-sized organization, the solution works well."
"Defender works in the background monitoring the traffic for viruses."
"I would highly recommend Microsoft Defender Antivirus for an individual looking to protect their endpoints."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has helped reduce our mean time to remediation significantly."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is free and part of the licensing stack of other Microsoft products."
"Along with security, there are certain IT policies in terms of accessibility of different sites, which are there in the organization, and with everything put together, there haven't been any instances where I have seen any kind of issues such as malware or other malicious event getting through on my laptop."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its ability to bring together all the data, providing more information than just antivirus hits."
"You can query and access useful information from logs and events, which is powerful and efficient."
"It gives us security for the users' mobiles and ends up protecting us in a significant way."
"I strongly recommend ZoneAlarm as a simple but efficient solution, especially if your organization doesn't have a dedicated budget for providing a security solution for BYOD devices."
"ZoneAlarm protects all computers from viruses, spyware, and hackers."
"ZoneAlarm provides us with very good security and we are using both of the modules, including antivirus as well as firewall features, and it is very easy and stable for us."
"The product's most valuable feature is the detection engine due to its ability to identify threats."
"This antivirus is regularly updated, and the updates can be scheduled."
"It is quick and easy to configure."
"It is easy to use through interfaces and easy to configure each of the customizations we created based on the characteristics that we wanted."
 

Cons

"The deployment of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Windows 10 is not quite so straightforward. This could be made easier."
"The integration and effectiveness of email security could be better. It's already built-in to the solution and checks emails, scans the links they contain etc."
"If there were more template queries in the library, that would make it much easier."
"There's a lot of manual effort involved to configure what we need."
"A challenge is that it is not a multi-tenant solution. Microsoft's tenant is a licensed tenant. I'm an MSSP. So, I have multiple customers. In Microsoft's world, that means that I can't just buy an E5 license and give that out to all my customers. That won't work because all of the customer data resides within a single tenant in Microsoft's world. Other products—such as SentinelOne, Palo Alto Cortex, CrowdStrike, et cetera—are multi-tenant. So, I can have it at the top of the pyramid for my analyst to look into it and see all the customers, but each customer's data is separate. If the customer wants to look at what we see, they would only see their data, whereas in the Microsoft world, if I've got multiple customers connected to the same Microsoft tenant, they would see everybody else's data, which is a privacy problem in Europe. It is not possible to share the data, and it is a breach of privacy."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can improve by providing more and different types of reports."
"The interface could be improved."
"I would like the solution to be able to prevent unauthorized programs from installing and to block unauthorised URLs which is similar to web filtering product."
"Currently, the client is only available for the Windows Operating System but it would be good if it were released for Mac OS as well."
"The solution's efficiency in threat containment and overall protection needs improvement."
"ZoneAlarm should be a light application that does not take too much memory in mobile phones."
"I would like it to be integrated with the Check Point centralization solution like Infinity Portal. It would be great to be able to manage it through the same website."
"I have used it in the past for personal desktops and for systems at small startups, but I would not recommend it as an enterprise level firewall security solution."
"Currently, the client is only available for the Windows Operating System but it would be good if it were released for Mac OS as well."
"Some of our users say that the interface is a little bit outdated for 2020, and want it to be more modern and cozy."
"Perhaps the primary area for potential enhancement is to make it faster, ensuring a more seamless experience while maintaining robust security features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution. It would be nice if it could be included with the Microsoft Office package."
"The solution comes free with Microsoft Windows 10."
"They are now doing it on an endpoint basis. It is based on the number of endpoints, which is good."
"You need a license to use this solution."
"It is within the same range as other products. It is not too expensive, and it is also not cheap. Its price can be better, but, well, it is Microsoft."
"There is an annual license required."
"There is no licensing fee."
"Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs."
"This is a freeware product and I recommend using it."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for ZoneAlarm, which is cheap."
"The pricing is reasonable, with a yearly renewal license costing seventy dollars."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"We use the free version of the software, but it can be upgraded to the paid Extreme Security edition."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Hospitality Company
10%
Construction Company
6%
Performing Arts
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise95
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ZoneAlarm?
ZoneAlarm has an acceptable price. Not much detail can be provided as I am not the one to judge the price.
What needs improvement with ZoneAlarm?
Check Point support needs improvement. Currently rated at 9 out of 10, more support is required. There are some concerns on support that need addressing. The integration of new products with their ...
What is your primary use case for ZoneAlarm?
I work with vendors such as F5 and deal with F5 as a reseller. I work with F5 BIG-IP regarding F5 Shape Security. BIG-IP Advanced WAF is what I work with regarding BIG-IP DNS or BIG-IP AFM. Advance...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Terma, Optix, Samsung Research Amercia, SF Police Credit Union, Independence Care System, Mattias Thomsen, Carmel Partners, Desert Research Institute, CRIF, FXCM Inc, US State Agency
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. ZoneAlarm and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.