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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs ThreatLocker Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 23, 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
5.8
Microsoft Defender is essential and affordable for users, offering cost advantages over AWS, despite unclear individual financial benefits.
Sentiment score
8.1
ThreatLocker Zero Trust Platform enhances security, improves efficiency, saves costs, increases revenue, and supports business growth by reducing threats.
As a Microsoft partner, we receive significant discounts, making the solution affordable for us.
If something were to happen without ThreatLocker, the cost would be huge, and thus, having it is definitely worth it.
The main return on investment is peace of mind, knowing that with ThreatLocker on any endpoint, it will almost always block all malicious code or exploits, even zero-day exploits.
It keeps malware, Trojans, and ransomware at bay.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender's support is reliable yet inconsistent in communication and timeliness, praised for skills but needs improvement.
Sentiment score
8.8
ThreatLocker Zero Trust's responsive customer service, highlighted by the Cyber Hero program, is praised for speed, professionalism, and effectiveness.
They are sometimes responsive, however, often issues cannot be reproduced on their end, making it challenging.
My team raised multiple support tickets for the product, and we were able to get responses from Microsoft support team.
Their response time and skill set are both good.
They have been very responsive, helpful, and knowledgeable.
I would rate their customer support a ten out of ten.
Their support is world-class.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Microsoft Defender is praised for its scalability and integration, efficiently managing vulnerabilities across various sectors and servers.
Sentiment score
8.2
ThreatLocker Zero Trust Platform offers seamless scalability and adaptability, efficiently managing diverse environments and dynamic growth across endpoints.
It is scalable; I evaluated the product and decided to use Defender on over 700 of our company servers.
I started off with just the servers, and within a month and a half, I set up the entire company with ThreatLocker.
It seems to primarily operate on the endpoints rather than at a central location pushing out policies.
I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is stable and reliable, though it has minor compatibility issues and can be resource-intensive.
Sentiment score
7.5
ThreatLocker Zero Trust Platform is praised for stability and reliability, with minor issues swiftly addressed by support.
There are compatibility issues occasionally arising with false positives when other security tools are not whitelisted in Microsoft Defender.
It is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU.
I would rate the overall stability as an eight.
For five years, we have not had a problem.
Once deployed, it downloads the policies locally, so even if the computer doesn't have internet, it doesn't matter.
It has been very stable, reliable, and accessible.
 

Room For Improvement

Improve efficiency by reducing false positives and enhancing integration, stability, and AI capabilities while considering cost and resource demands.
ThreatLocker needs UI improvements, better integrations, expanded training, enhanced analytics, restricted Learning Mode, and faster support.
A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update.
The product is not stable; it often uses excessive memory and CPU, which makes it slow.
The automated remediations can be more specific.
Controlling the cloud environment, not just endpoints, is crucial.
This is problematic when immediate attention is needed.
Comprehensive 24-hour log monitoring is a valuable enhancement for both business and enterprise-level users.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management has competitive pricing, requiring a license upgrade for additional features, often included in packages.
Enterprise buyers find ThreatLocker's pricing competitive and flexible, valuing its affordability, transparency, and accessible setup costs.
Overall, every organization wishes for cheaper options, but we look at the security side as well, so we are good for now.
For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
The pricing is reasonable, and it's included in the whole Microsoft E5 bundle, so it's all-inclusive.
After conversations with other partners, it became clear we underpriced it initially, which caused most of our issues.
We are moving towards the Unified solution, where they basically bundle everything together, providing us better stability with the ability to bring in new product offerings without having to go back to the customer and say, 'This is going to cost you.'
I had a really good deal at the time, and it continues to be cost-effective.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management enhances security and efficiency through integration, accurate assessments, risk analysis, and management features.
ThreatLocker Zero Trust Platform enhances security with features like application control, selective elevation, and robust network access controls.
The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources.
The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses.
ThreatLocker Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform's ability to block access to unauthorized applications has been excellent.
It protects our customers.
The major benefit is fewer breaches overall, as nothing can be run without prior approval. This helps my company protect its data and secure itself effectively.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (14th), Microsoft Security Suite (22nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
ThreatLocker Zero Trust End...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
6th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (5th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (6th), Application Control (2nd), ZTNA (3rd), Ransomware Protection (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThreatLocker Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform is 2.7%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

TakayukiUmehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of management and integration supports operations, but has high resource consumption
A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products. I appreciate that I can click on a server in the Defender Console, notice a risk, and retrieve all necessary information. Speed is a key feature as it is very quick to administer and allows for manual configuration from the portal.
Johnathan Bodily - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures ransomware protection and reduces phishing chaos
The application control has been great so far, and while I am still exploring the network access controls, I unfortunately don't have access to one module I would love to have due to licensing restrictions. It's easy to use in regard to reducing attack surfaces. For me, it's a piece of cake. We can have something approved within 30 seconds, thanks to the mobile app. We haven't eliminated security solutions. We just add to it, and ThreatLocker has been a great addition. We also have Kaseya and ThreatLocker as a supplement to that. It's useful. They have overlap, and we look at the overlap as a good thing. It's helped your organization save on operational costs or expenses by ensuring that many fewer hours are spent dealing with ransomware nonsense. I cannot count the amount of hours that I personally have not had to put in to recovering an environment from a ransomware event. The last big one took us about three weeks to completely recover from. Since we've grouped ThreatLocker in, the management of that whole setup has gone down to just daily help desk tasks and general server maintenance instead of having the whole system on fire. There are probably thousands of hours of saved time between our teams. It's been great so far. ThreatLocker Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform's ability to block access to unauthorized applications is great. It's my biggest protection, the blocked applications. In a lot of cases, you go to install something yourself that you need for management, and it comes in and says, nope. And then I have to log into the portal and approve it. I get our other guys saying, hey, why are you trying to approve something? Any of the tools that I'm using on a day-to-day basis that haven't been in the environment during the whole learning mode initially, I could go through and set extensions and all that. So, while it's a headache on that end, the amount of saved time I can't even count. It is a little frustrating on my end since I like to go as quickly as I possibly can, and it slows me down. However, that's a really good thing. Depending on the site, it can save a lot of time and cut down headaches. It's likely saved a week's worth of time. It's cut down the amount of sever help desk tickets. Those have become minimal.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
37%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
For our current usage, we do not have any complaints, but a potential improvement could be the introduction of a more advanced AI agent, possibly a large language model with better performance than...
What do you like most about ThreatLocker Allowlisting?
The interface is clean and well-organized, making it simple to navigate and find what we need.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThreatLocker Allowlisting?
We have encountered a few challenges regarding pricing, contract renewals, and additions. As we explored adding features like Cyber Hero, it proved to be an increased expense for our clients. This ...
What needs improvement with ThreatLocker Allowlisting?
I find that the learning mode is too accessible. Technicians sometimes default to it instead of manually building policy controls. I would prefer the learning mode to be harder to access, ideally h...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Protect, Allowlisting, Network Control, Ringfencing
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. ThreatLocker Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.