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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs VirusTotal comparison

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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
212
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Agentic Endpoint Security (1st)
VirusTotal
Ranking in Anti-Malware Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Anti-Malware Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.0%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VirusTotal is 3.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Anti-Malware Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.0%
VirusTotal3.1%
Other90.9%
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.
Hanish Dhamecha - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Analyst L2 at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Improves security alerts and analysis with comprehensive insights
I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy. VirusTotal should add more details like those from competitors such as URL Void or Symantec URL Checker, which show the category of websites. The addition of a file selection option to analyze files would also enhance the service.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It depends on the licensing. Most of the customers have got at least a 365 E3 license, and they can use most of the features of Windows 10 Defender. So, anyone who has got an enterprise license can start using those features. Some of the customers have got E5 licenses, and they can use all advanced features. Customers with E5 licenses use the advanced site protection (ATP) features and web content filtering without going via a proxy, which gives the benefit of replacing the proxy. They can get the benefit of MCAS and integration with Intune and the endpoint manager. It is a kind of single platform for all 365 technologies. It helps customers in managing everything through a unified portal."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable."
"Technical support has been great."
"The stability is great. I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft."
"This software is easy to use."
"The threat hunting service is very useful for a security professional."
"It's very reliable and very dependable."
"Stable endpoint manager, antivirus, and antimalware, with fast technical support and a straightforward setup."
"I have never had any problems with stability or bugs while using VirusTotal."
"It provides detailed insights into possible malicious behavior, dropped files, and TCP connections."
"It is quite simple for anyone if they just want to check some suspicious URLs."
"The feature I like the most is the ability to see the MD5 or SHA-256 signature of the file, and also the composition of the file according to its segments."
"It gives detailed information about suspicious IPs, which is one of its most valuable features."
"It can scan the dark web and find if an email ID has been compromised. This is another area that we have not explored yet."
"VirusTotal provides 95% to 98% accurate information."
"The product is easy to use with coding, such as Python or Java, via its API."
 

Cons

"The frequency of the patching, and the frequency of the updates, are not included with the free version."
"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."
"It can get a bit laggy sometimes. Other than that, we don't have any issues. They constantly tweak it and fix it up based on users' feedback. It has improved a lot over the past four years. Defender for Endpoint never really used to be a good endpoint security solution, but over the past couple of years, Microsoft has invested heavily in it. So, it has come a long way in all aspects of endpoint security. If they want to make it better, they should just continue investing in the current path of what they've been doing over the past couple of years."
"One area where the product could be improved is that I don't think it can be used all by itself, if you are working with a business."
"The technical from Microsoft could be better. It is not as good as other solutions."
"There's a lot of manual effort involved to configure what we need."
"More hooks and more reporting would be beneficial. More proactive reporting would be ideal."
"ATP is a work in progress. To me, it is not a complete product."
"VirusTotal needs better advertisement and promotion, especially in the Middle East, since it is not yet widely recognized or popular in that region."
"There should be room for improvement, particularly in the API side of things."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in making some of the most useful features more accessible in the non-paid version."
"VirusTotal is hard to understand because you need to know Google Docs to create queries, and it doesn't have documentation for that."
"The platform could improve in the areas of endpoints and networks."
"They can improve the telemetry. Whenever we handle a sample, they cannot provide any information about a victim."
"I would like to see an improved user interface and some automation."
"VirusTotal has predefined reports, but there is a lot of manual effort involved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We went for Microsoft Defender once we were informed that it would be part of our Office 365 package. So, we combined the licensing for the OS with Office 365. Yeah. We thought it was a good bargain."
"As we operate in the educational sector, we are eligible for an educational discount."
"This solution is part of an enterprise license we have."
"The normal, standalone model, is not expensive, but the enterprise model that includes the bundle with email and some web protection, is a bit more expensive."
"It is so expensive. It isn't cheaper than McAfee or other solutions."
"For me, the pricing is very good, but for management it's very expensive. Other solutions are less expensive. But when I present all the information and all the reports they say, "Well, it's expensive, but the cost-benefit is very good.""
"We sell this product as part of Office 365 and it is not expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is very economical."
"We are using VirusTotal with free licenses, managing the license limits across three or four accounts, thus incurring no costs."
"VirusTotal is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise97
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

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 VirusTotal?
I do not know about the pricing or licensing as our organization services VirusTotal for our clients.
What needs improvement with VirusTotal?
I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy. VirusTotal should add more details like those from competitors such as URL Void or Symantec URL Checker, which show the categ...
What is your primary use case for VirusTotal?
As I work in an incident response role, my daily task is to mitigate the security alert and perform the analysis part. When any alerts come, I check the IPs from where they originate and the locati...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. VirusTotal and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.