Report:

Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection

Top Vendor Products for Endpoint Protection in 2026

• CrowdStrike
• Microsoft
• Palo Alto Networks
• SentinelOne
• Sophos
• TrendAI

Endpoint Protection Vendor Product Comparisons 2026

• CrowdStrike - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Customer experience: Customers rate account management, technical support and managed services as responsive and helpful, resulting in higher overall trust in CrowdStrike.
  • Product strategy: CrowdStrike has rapidly broadened its offering by leveraging a strong market position and sustained investment in product expansion, all built on a single lightweight endpoint agent and administration console. This approach allows clients to address a wider range of existing and emerging challenges, including identity protection, exposure management, security operations, AI security and more.
  • Product: CrowdStrike stands out for its lightweight performance impact, mature cloud-based management, deep EDR functionality and the growing maturity of its data security capabilities.

  Cons:

  • Pricing: CrowdStrike remains a premium-priced endpoint protection offering compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Geographic strategy: Despite recent announcements, customers and prospects still have limited choices for cloud-hosting points of presence outside Germany and the U.S.
  • Vertical strategy: Falcon is not suitable for organizations requiring on-premises endpoint protection management, needing to protect air-gapped environments without proxy access, or pursuing full operational and technological sovereignty outside the U.S.


• Microsoft - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Product: Defender for Endpoint stands out for its mature cloud-based management, advanced EDR capabilities, a tight integration with Microsoft's Defender Suite and increasing maturity of data security features.
  • Product strategy: Microsoft continues to advance its endpoint protection product with enhancements like predictive shielding, demonstrating ongoing commitment to addressing emerging customer requirements.
  • Market responsiveness and track record: Microsoft holds a significant share of the endpoint protection market and is frequently considered by buyers, especially through the Microsoft 365 E5 bundle.

  Cons:

  • Sales execution: Customers report that Microsoft's licensing model is complex and difficult to understand. Microsoft Defender for Servers is not included in popular packages like Microsoft 365 E3 or E5.
  • Customer experience: Customers indicate that ease of product use and technical support resolution are variable.
  • Vertical strategy: Defender for Endpoint does not support on-premises management and is not suitable for organizations pursuing full operational or technological sovereignty outside the U.S.


• Palo Alto Networks - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Product: Cortex XDR is valued by customers for effective prevention, protection and EDR features, as well as flexible customization and automation.
  • Product strategy: Palo Alto Networks invests in mature EDR, prevention and protection feature parity across major operating systems, mature cloud-based management, expanding endpoint DLP capabilities and a strong roadmap for AI security.
  • Innovation: Recent developments, such as behavioral protection for kernel drivers, enhanced use of control context in exposure prioritization, and built-in AI agents for security operations, demonstrate commitment to addressing emerging end-user requirements.

  Cons:

  • Vertical strategy: Despite offering Broker VM, Cortex XDR does not support on-premises management and is not suitable for organizations that need to protect air-gapped environments without proxy access, or for those pursuing full operational and technological sovereignty outside the U.S.
  • Pricing: Cortex XDR remains a premium-priced offering; customers often report increasing licensing costs at renewal.
  • Market responsiveness and track record: The company's share of the endpoint protection market remains significantly lower than that of other Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.


• SentinelOne - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Product strategy: SentinelOne's product strategy and security roadmap align with emerging customer needs by enhancing detection and response capabilities, expanding network telemetry visibility and maintaining strong feature parity across supported operating systems. The platform offers robust TDIR integrations with third-party products and plans to add endpoint DLP capabilities, as well as integrate Prompt Security for AI usage control.
  • Market understanding: The company demonstrates strong understanding of endpoint protection market direction, especially with acquisitions such as that of Prompt Security.
  • Market responsiveness and track record: SentinelOne's share of the endpoint protection market is larger than most other vendors included in this Magic Quadrant.

  Cons:

  • Geographic strategy: Market penetration outside North America and Europe remains limited, compared to the more geographically diversified competitors.
  • Sales strategy: According to Gartner client inquiries and Peer Insights feedback, SentinelOne is included on buyers' shortlists less frequently than in previous years.
  • Innovation: SentinelOne's recent innovations, such as advanced DNS collection and lateral movement mitigation, are less likely to shape the broader endpoint protection market.


• Sophos - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Operations: Sophos has strengthened operational execution through increased team size in quality assurance, expanded customer reach and improved global presence, supported by the Secureworks acquisition.
  • Overall viability: Consistent revenue growth, attribution of most revenue to endpoint protection product sales, and long-established market presence indicate continued commitment to endpoint protection offerings.
  • Pricing: Sophos's endpoint protection product pricing is generally competitive compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Its per-user licensing model is attractive to organizations where employees have multiple devices.

  Cons:

  • Vertical strategy: Sophos does not offer on-premises management capabilities, making its product unsuitable for organizations requiring data sovereignty outside of its supported points of presence.
  • Sales strategy: Based on client inquiries and Peer Insights feedback, Sophos is rarely included on competitive enterprise endpoint protection provider shortlists compared to other Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Innovation: Recent R&D focused on improving endpoint agent performance and adding AI assistance for alerts summarization, addressing existing product gaps rather than delivering innovation.


• TrendAI - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Product strategy: TrendAI continues to invest in its endpoint protection product and supports a broad range of operating systems, including legacy versions. Recent enhancements, such as data security, attack path mapping and adaptive protection, align with emerging buyer requirements. The roadmap focuses on reducing attack surface through hardening rules, browser-based prompt injection protection and AI usage discovery, further strengthening its position in the endpoint protection market.
  • Product: TrendAI's strong prevention capabilities, cloud-based, hybrid and on-premises management, broad range of OS support, and workspace security are well-regarded by customers.
  • Pricing: TrendAI's endpoint protection product pricing is generally competitive compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.

  Cons:

  • Sales strategy: Recent customer feedback indicates that TrendAI's credit-based licensing model is hard to interpret, noting limited transparency around how credits are distributed across the vendor's broader product portfolio.
  • Overall viability: In recent years, TrendAI's revenue growth in the endpoint protection market has been slower than that of other Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Customer experience: Recent customer feedback and third-party testing results indicate that high alert volumes and resource-intensive scanning can degrade end-user experience. Some customers also reported support quality issues in the analysis period.


• Bitdefender - Visionary
  

  Pros:

  • Product strategy: Bitdefender's ongoing investments are aligned with emerging buyer requirements in the endpoint protection market. These include investments in proactive hardening and attack surface reduction (PHASR), an intuitive and well-integrated product console, and a product roadmap aimed at helping organizations discover and control AI usage.
  • Geographic strategy: The product console is available in multiple languages, and Bitdefender offers SaaS cloud hosting points of presence in Europe, North America and Asia/Pacific. Recent sovereign hosting options in France and Germany provide more deployment choices for European organizations.
  • Pricing: Bitdefender's endpoint protection product pricing is competitive for the breadth and depth of capabilities it offers, relative to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.

  Cons:

  • Operations: Bitdefender remains one of the smaller providers in this Magic Quadrant, with less-diversified operations, fewer resources and lower enterprise visibility compared to Leaders.
  • Sales strategy: Based on Gartner client inquiries and Peer Insights feedback, Bitdefender is less frequently included on competitive endpoint protection provider shortlists than Leaders.
  • Market responsiveness and track record: Bitdefender's share of the endpoint protection market remains low compared to Challengers and Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.


• Check Point Software Technologies - Visionary
  

  Pros:

  • Market understanding: Check Point expands its endpoint and workspace security portfolio through acquisitions and organic development, increasing its relevance with target clients.
  • Geographic strategy: The vendor supports at least one SaaS point of presence in most major geographic regions, including Europe, North America, Asia/Pacific and the Middle East, along with support for on-premises management.
  • Pricing: Check Point's endpoint protection product pricing is competitive, given its breadth of prevention, protection and data security features compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.

  Cons:

  • Product: Customers report that Harmony Endpoint can slow down protected endpoints due to high system resource consumption, primarily during scans.
  • Market responsiveness and track record: Check Point's share of the endpoint protection market remains low compared to Challengers and Leaders.
  • Sales strategy: Based on Gartner client inquiries and Peer Insights feedback, Check Point is rarely included on competitive endpoint protection provider shortlists compared to Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.


• ESET - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • Customer experience: Customers rate ESET's technical support as helpful and prompt. Combined with solid protection efficacy and ease of use for common administrative tasks, this results in a positive customer experience for ESET's target audience.
  • Overall viability: Most of ESET's revenue comes from selling its endpoint protection product to SMB and MSE segments. Its long history and consistent performance underscore ESET's viability in this market.
  • Pricing: ESET's endpoint protection product pricing is generally competitive compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.

  Cons:

  • Product strategy: ESET focuses R&D on closing gaps, expanding third-party integrations and improving signal correlation. The product currently lacks data security and AI usage control features, which are increasingly demanded by buyers and offered by more vendors in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Market understanding: In the past year, ESET has followed the market rather than led it, responding slowly to emerging end-user challenges like shadow and enterprise AI adoption.
  • Sales strategy: Based on Gartner client inquiries and Peer Insights feedback, ESET is rarely included on competitive endpoint protection provider shortlists compared to Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.


• Broadcom - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Vertical strategy: Broadcom supports on-premises endpoint protection management capabilities, including deployment in the air-gapped environments required by highly regulated organizations.
  • Overall viability: Broadcom is a large, well-funded vendor with a broad cybersecurity and infrastructure product portfolio. The company continues to make incremental enhancements and bug fixes to its endpoint protection products.
  • Geographic strategy: SES Complete's administration dashboard supports multiple European and Asian languages in addition to English, benefiting international operations teams.

  Cons:

  • Customer experience: Broadcom primarily targets very large organizations, which limits its ability to effectively sell to, support and build trust with smaller organizations directly. Broadcom supports smaller and midsize organizations through its Catalyst partner program.
  • Innovation: Broadcom focuses R&D on incremental enhancements and integration of endpoint protection products, with limited emphasis on addressing emerging risks such as shadow AI and enterprise AI adoption.
  • Market responsiveness and track record: Broadcom's endpoint protection products primarily appeal to existing customers committed to its broader cybersecurity portfolio.


• Fortinet - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Vertical strategy: Fortinet maintains a balanced presence across key industry verticals such as government and manufacturing. The company continues to enhance its on-premises product, maintaining near-complete feature parity with its cloud-delivered offering.
  • Pricing: Fortinet's endpoint protection pricing is competitive compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Overall viability: Fortinet is a large, well-funded vendor with consistent revenue growth and strong market presence across multiple business lines. Fortinet continues to invest in workspace security technologies, including FortiEndpoint, as evidenced by recent agent unification initiatives aimed at enhancing integrated data protection capabilities.

  Cons:

  • Product strategy: Delays in release of prevention features, like host firewall management for non-Windows systems, hinder Fortinet's product strategy. Full value is realized only within the broader Fortinet ecosystem; stand-alone deployments may face functional limitations for administration and security operations.
  • Sales strategy: Based on client inquiries and Peer Insights feedback, Fortinet is rarely included on competitive endpoint protection provider shortlists compared to Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Market responsiveness and track record: Fortinet's share of the endpoint protection market remains significantly lower than that of Leaders or Challengers in this Magic Quadrant.


• Trellix - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Geographic strategy: Trellix offers multiple SaaS points of presence in key markets, including North America, Europe, Australia, Singapore and India, and provides multilingual support to global customers.
  • Vertical strategy: The company supports and invests in improving its on-premises management offering, including deployments in air-gapped environments required by highly regulated organizations.
  • Pricing: Trellix's endpoint protection pricing is generally competitive compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.

  Cons:

  • Product strategy: Trellix focuses on closing product gaps through feature parity, improved detection and customizable alerting, remote shell, and configurable data retention for its on-premises offering. The product still lacks AI discovery and usage control features increasingly sought by buyers and offered by more vendors in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Market responsiveness and record: Based on Gartner's assessment of market share, seat count estimates and client inquiries, Trellix's share of the endpoint protection market has declined relative to leading providers in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Sales strategy: Based on client inquiries and Peer Insights feedback, Trellix is rarely included on competitive endpoint protection provider shortlists compared to Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.


• WithSecure - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Market understanding: WithSecure's understanding of the endpoint protection market's dynamics and competitors helps the company concentrate its efforts on helping organizations in Europe meet their regulatory, product and service needs.
  • Vertical strategy: WithSecure announced plans to make its offering available on the AWS European Sovereign Cloud (ESC) in Germany. This move aligns with its target audience and is attractive to organizations in Europe pursuing data and operational sovereignty objectives.
  • Pricing: WithSecure's endpoint protection product pricing is competitive compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.

  Cons:

  • Product Strategy: WithSecure's latest updates, including threat simulation to visualize possible attack paths and enhanced APIs, primarily address product deficiencies rather than drive innovation, making them unlikely to significantly influence the broader enterprise endpoint protection landscape.
  • Market responsiveness and track record: WithSecure's share of the endpoint protection market remains lower than that of Leaders or Challengers in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Operations: WithSecure remains a comparatively small company with less-diversified operations and geographic presence than Leaders in this Magic Quadrant, particularly following its recent divestment of the cybersecurity consulting business and resulting reduction in headcount.

Reference

• Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection, 26 May 2026, ID G00838669

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