We performed a comparison between Fortinet Forticlient and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both solutions have a valuable set of features and are considered to have good pricing. Users seem to give Fortinet Forticlient slightly better ratings because its deployment is easier than that of Microsoft Defender For Endpoint.
"Ability to get forensics details and also memory exfiltration."
"The main thing is that I feel safe. Because the processes that have been used to get a handle on the attackers are much better than other competitors"
"Fortinet FortiEDR's scalability is quite good, and you can add licenses to the solution."
"Fortinet FortiEDR's firewalling, rule creation, monitoring, and inspection profiles are great."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"It notifies us if there's any suspicious file on any PC. If any execution or similar kind of thing is happening, it just alerts us. It doesn't only alert. It also blocks the execution until we allow it. We check whether the execution is legitimate or not, and then approve it or keep it blocked. This gives us a little bit of control over this mechanism. Fortinet FortiEDR is also very straightforward and easy to maintain."
"It is stable and scalable."
"I like FortiClient EMS. FortiEDR has a lot of great features like lockdown mode, remote wipes, and encryption. I can set malware outbreak policies and controls for detecting abnormalities. You can also simulate phishing attacks."
"The service is centralized."
"The initial setup is very good."
"It has a very easy-to-use interface. It has ease of management, and all the modules are there. SKUs are also easily identifiable. Whatever is required in the firewall is already there in it. It's very advanced, and analytics reporting is very good. They also have cloud reporting. You get all the services that are available for your device in the cloud. You just have to subscribe. It's very easy. There's a lot of demand for this solution because it's an all-in-one solution. The throughput is very high."
"The initial setup of this solution is easy."
"From Forticlient, the EMS, the central management is easy to use."
"The setup for FortiClient is really straightforward."
"The VPN has proven to be quite useful."
"Starting from FortiGate and from the EMS server, you have to begin at the endpoint, and that's the most useful thing about using FortiClient."
"The best part is that it is built into Windows, whether it is a server base or a desktop base, which gives more control over the operating system. Because Defender, the operating system, and the Office solution are by Microsoft, everything is working like hand-in-glove. Its administrative overhead is less because a desktop user has already got some experience of how to handle a Microsoft Defender notification or administer it."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has been secure and there is zero maintenance required because it updates with Microsoft Windows."
"One of the valuable features of the solution is the small updates that keep my machine relatively clean from any infections."
"You have endpoint security to keep your devices safe. That's the feature that we're interested in."
"Provides good vulnerability assessment."
"The solution provides protections and reports about strange behavior and automatically blocks some of it. I love the way that statuses are represented."
"The most important feature is the way it monitors the threats and blocks them. About 10 days ago, we were implementing SOC for a particular client. The SOC was not yet implemented, but they had Microsoft Defender. That organization was hit by some ransomware, but the hacker could not succeed. Because of the EDR, the hacker could not install the hacking tools. They were trying to do that, but Microsoft Defender completely blocked that. The hacker could log into the system, but they could not install anything."
"In terms of the installation, ease of use, and user interface, Defender has been great so far."
"The amount of usage, the number of details we get, or the number of options that can be tweaked is limited in comparison to that with other EDR solutions"
"I would like the solution to extend beyond endpoint protection and include other attack surfaces such as other network components."
"Detections could be improved."
"I think cloud security and SASE are areas of concern in the product where improvements are required. The tool's cloud version has to be improved in terms of the security it offers."
"The SIEM could be improved."
"Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later."
"The solution's installation from a central installation server could be improved because the engineers had a little bit of trouble getting it installed from a central location."
"We'd like to see more one-to-one product presentations for the distribution channels."
"The deployment status is not good in Mac devices and sometimes in Windows-based devices using GPO, like Active Directory, that are not on the local network."
"There is lagging in some of the authentication tools to support the newer versions, this is happening because they are not supported."
"They have an EDR feature for end protection detection and response, and this is actually with an add-on subscription, which is charged separately. What I would like to see is this included with the base cost."
"Technical support is awful. Their online response time is not prompt. They should not respond after four or five days. Their support guys are not competent enough. Small issues are taking time."
"Compatibility issues between different versions."
"I would like for the next release to be more user-friendly for users to do not have as much of a technical background."
"The user interface could be more inviting."
"One area that could be improved is cost, but you've got to pay for what you get."
"It is using a large space in your memory all the time. While an antivirus will use some of your memory, if they could reduce the load of the antivirus to some extent that would be good."
"Some of the integrations that Defender should include involve the use of the web app."
"We would like to see more tools for managing on-premises security... Sometimes, we have the tools, like Defender, to manage security in the cloud, but because we are so focused on the cloud, we forget the fact that we need to be sure about the security of the on-premises environment, specifically Active Directory."
"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."
"Microsoft support could be more knowledgeable."
"The detection of viruses could be a little bit better."
"It is not very scalable from the eyes of an MSP because there is no dashboard that you can use to see all of your devices that have Windows Defender unless you have your own dashboard or an RMM tool to actually look at it. So, you might not get to know that a particular computer of a client is doing something, and it might have got a virus. That person might know that, but unless you set it up to actually send you the information, you won't get to know that. That's one of the things that is hard with Microsoft Defender. It is not made for the MSP world where you have one pane of glass to see all of your clients with Microsoft Defender on it unless your RMM tool already has that built-in and it can see the telemetry from Microsoft Defender."
"Threat intelligence has the potential for improvement, particularly by integrating more sources."
More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Pricing and Cost Advice →
Fortinet FortiClient is ranked 15th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 86 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. Fortinet FortiClient is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiClient writes "Easy to set up and user-friendly with good support ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "Eliminates the need to look at multiple dashboards by automatically providing one XDR dashboard to show the security score of each subscription". Fortinet FortiClient is most compared with OpenVPN Access Server, Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, Ivanti Connect Secure and CrowdStrike Falcon, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon and Check Point Harmony Endpoint. See our Fortinet FortiClient vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
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We monitor all Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) 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.
