Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 5, 2023

We compared Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:

  • Features: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration offers exceptional integration through APIs, advanced protection against data leaks, and the ability to detect complex social engineering attacks. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 stands out for its thorough email scanning, ease of use, and anti-phishing capabilities.

  • Room for Improvement: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration could improve integration with Exchange and other SaaS clouds while enhancing its threat clouds and AI engines. On the other hand, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can improve integration with non-Microsoft solutions and offer better documentation for its advanced security features.

  • Service and Support: Check Point has earned mixed reviews for its customer service. Some customers appreciate the technical support provided, while others are dissatisfied with response times. Microsoft customer service has received mixed feedback. While some customers find it responsive and prompt, others believe it could be more advanced and attentive.

  • Ease of Deployment: Check Point Harmony Email is considered relatively easy to implement. The setup for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is generally considered effortless. Users appreciate its seamless integration with Office 365 and the minimal maintenance it requires.

  • Pricing: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration is a cost-effective option. It offers competitive prices and is suitable for small to medium-sized organizations. Some reviewers found Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to be reasonably priced, and others consider it expensive. Defender is typically sold in a bundle, so it’s challenging to compare the cost to other solutions.

  • ROI: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration delivers superior return on investment compared to other options. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps users prevent ransomware and malware while enhancing email security and providing cost savings through its subscription-based service.

Comparison Results: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration is an effective solution for blocking malicious attachments and detecting social engineering attacks. However, there is room for improvement in terms of integration and support, reducing false positives, and enhancing response times. Defender is praised for its thorough email scanning and integration into a single console. Defender users desire a more centralized interface and improved spam and malware detection.

772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"This product enhances faster and more secure sharing of information among colleagues from different departments.""The solution has a very effective anti-phishing algorithm that detects a significantly higher number of phishing emails compared to the default Microsoft solution.""It provides visibility of events, what's going on with the environment, what we're missing with our other solution, and the user behavior.""The dashboard provides information to investigate more about malicious activity and blocked emails.""The program has a nice interface and it is easy to use.""As with most of the other Check Point products, the CloudGuard SaaS has the advanced visibility of the events and alerts.""The product is a fairly complete and centralized solution accessible through the Infinity Portal.""The most valuable features would be its ability to intercept phishing emails and emails laden with malware, viruses, false links, etc."

More Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Pros →

"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat.""Defender enables us to secure all 365-related activity from a single place. It gives us visibility into everything happening in Outlook, protecting us against phishing and other email-based threats. Defender helps us detect any suspicious behaviors.""Microsoft Defender has a feature to protect each and every attachment. Even if it's an encrypted attachment, it will check for any potential threats.""The initial setup was easy.""The risk level notifications are most valuable. We get to know what kind of intrusion or attack is there, and we can fix a problem on time.""The product is not resource-intensive.""The most valuable feature is protection against malicious links, fishing, and impersonation. You can train people to be aware of these threats, but they're not always careful. When they're using their phones between meetings, they click on a link, and it's game over.""Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pros →

Cons
"Check Point has to continue refining the intelligence engine to minimize the number of false positives.""I need to go to Check Point's admin portal if I want to see the license list and the details of the users of the tool, making it an area of concern where some ease of process should be provided from an improvement perspective.""The next release should focus more on email categorization and provide options for unlocking blocked safe emails.""A signature-based filter could improve the solution's AI model for spam email.""Harmony Email & Collaboration could be improved by making the whitelist available on the website and application level.""The product's pricing needs improvement.""Check Point Infinity Portal sometimes feels a bit slow, and there are performance issues that should be easy to fix.""It would be good to have the option to export the respective record data from dashboards or logs to .csv or other files."

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"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement.""This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products.""Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites.""Microsoft security solutions work as expected. They are constantly updating the solutions to make them better. At the same time, the changes can impact a customer's environment, and we need to adjust settings. Sometimes we aren't aware of the changes, and nothing is pushed from the backend automatically.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could improve by giving customers information on techniques to prevent threats. For example, information about best practices on how to protect their own devices against hackers and scammers, such as educational information or training. This would help others have a better understanding of cyber security. Additionally, there can be more security features added.""The custom alerts have to improve a lot.""There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types.""They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Having information stolen by a hacker would be more expensive than purchasing a license."
  • "Being able to keep the phishing campaigns out of my company has been ROI for me."
  • "Do a full feature evaluation (interactive) with a support person. That is what I did."
  • "The price is very good, based on what they deliver."
  • "One of the nice features is that the licensing model is elastic, so if you go over your license count, you can add users during your billing cycle and true-up later."
  • "There are absolutely no additional costs to the standard licensing fees. One of the wonderful pieces is that CloudGuard SaaS is all-inclusive in its licensing. There's no a-la-carte functionality. You're getting 100 percent of the product for the licensing that you're paying."
  • "The difference between [Check Point and its competitors] boiled down to money. Price-wise, Check Point was very good, it was very competitive."
  • "The pricing and licensing are always negotiable."
  • More Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It's a user-base subscription."
  • "From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
  • "Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
  • "For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
  • "The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
  • "Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:I don't even have details of the product's single license purchased by my company.
    Top Answer:I use the solution in my company to secure the users' environment so that there are no phishing attacks. The tool operates as an anti-spam solution for the users in our company. Each and every email… more »
    Top Answer:The product offers good and easy integration capabilities with other products.
    Top Answer:Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the… more »
    Top Answer:The product must provide better malware detection. The detection algorithms don't perform the way I hope they would.
    Ranking
    7th
    out of 107 in Email Security
    Views
    2,512
    Comparisons
    1,395
    Reviews
    26
    Average Words per Review
    507
    Rating
    8.7
    1st
    out of 107 in Email Security
    Views
    12,659
    Comparisons
    10,155
    Reviews
    28
    Average Words per Review
    677
    Rating
    8.5
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Check Point CloudGuard, Check Point CloudGuard SaaS , Check Point Harmony Email & Office
    MS Defender for Office 365
    Learn More
    Overview

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office is a cloud-based software offering complete protection to stop malware attacks through emails. The software is designed to provide protection for organizations using Office 365, G Suite, Google Workspace, and all other collaboration and file-sharing apps. Access permissions can be granted and custom policies can be defined for any user of choice.

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office identifies and blocks advanced malware, phishing, and ransomware attacks in real time before they reach the user’s inbox. In turn, this also helps protect sensitive business data from breaches. Harmony Email and Office was the first solution to implement machine learning, API, and AI for email security, and will ultimately prevent any attempts at account takeover via agentless multi-factor authentication.

    What is Complete Protection?

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office offers a superior catch rate for collaboration apps and cloud email with their API-based solution that detects attacks that other solutions miss, including account takeover, supply chain attacks, ransomware, and BEC. The complete protection offers:

    • Malware Protection - Recognized by NSS Labs as “most effective in breach prevention,” the solution leverages technologies to bring clean files to users within 1.5 seconds. In addition, enterprises can be safer as the solution prevents malicious messages and files from reaching the user’s inbox.
    • Data Leakage Protection - Any confidential or sensitive information will be marked and have a classified suffix added to the end of the message or file to help keep those materials safe. Those files are encrypted, and the user will be alerted to any attempted breach of those messages.
    • Phishing Protection - Before advanced phishing attacks reach the end user, Harmony Email and Office detects and blocks them, including outbound, inbound, and internal communications.
    • Account Takeover Protection - After a user connects their cloud app, the solution captures the user's history and creates a profile and a custom threat profile. In the event of a suspected account takeover, threat intelligence is leveraged through millions of Check Point-secured gateways and endpoints and is blocked.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office offers a revolutionary prevention solution to stop malware attacks through emails. Users particularly like its visibility and the ability to protect sensitive business data.

    David U., a CISO at IMC companies, notes, "It provides visibility of events, what's going on with the environment, what we're missing with our other solution, and the user behavior."

    Mantu S., a senior technology architect at Incedo Inc., writes, "We are able to protect sensitive business data and maintain regulatory compliance with advanced data leak prevention (DLP)."

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

    With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.

    This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.

    Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.

    Sample Customers
    Helvetia, Denham Capital, Daymark Solutions, Neopharm Group
    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Energy/Utilities Company16%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Security Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm5%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company17%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise31%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise46%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business45%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise40%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise51%
    Buyer's Guide
    Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is ranked 7th in Email Security with 49 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is ranked 1st in Email Security with 41 reviews. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration writes "Has a user-friendly dashboard, a great anti-phishing algorithm, and sandboxing for testing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 writes "Allows for easy reporting of problems, valuable anti-phishing, and anti-malware support". Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is most compared with Avanan, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Mimecast Email Security, Cisco Secure Email and Barracuda Email Protection, whereas Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is most compared with Proofpoint Email Protection, Mimecast Email Security, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Cisco Secure Email and Fortinet FortiMail. See our Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 report.

    See our list of best Email Security vendors.

    We monitor all Email Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.