Sophos vs. Trend Micro: How Do They Shape Up?

If you’re in the market for an endpoint detection and response (XDR) product, there are plenty of options available. But within the word salad of overlapping terms (XDR, EDR, ASM, and more), it can be a real challenge to actually understand what features you need and where they’re available. This means choosing the right XDR solution for your business is far from straightforward.

This is absolutely the case when it comes to Sophos and Trend Micro. Both are leading products and offer a wide range of functionality to their users. But while both claim to be a one-stop shop for cybersecurity, this isn’t always necessarily the case.

There are plenty of great reasons to invest in either Sophos One or Trend Micro. But it’s also important to be aware of the limitations and gaps, so you can make a properly informed decision. Here’s everything you need to know about the two products:

About Sophos: Intercept X

Sophos offers a wide range of cybersecurity products, largely targeted toward small and medium-sized businesses. The suite includes tools to manage detection and response, vulnerability management, endpoint protection, and more.

Intercept X is Sophos’ flagship endpoint detection product, combining XDR functionality with endpoint detection and response (EDR) features. The goal is to identify, investigate, and respond to suspicious activity. Main features include:

• Anti-ransomware;
• Anti-exploitation;
• Adaptive attack protection;
• Device encryption;
• Critical attack warning.

Intercept X Pros:

Sophos is generally well-liked among its SME customer base, for a few common reasons:

• Antivirus and ransomware detection – Strong functionality here means Intercept X can effectively identify and respond to realtime threats.
• XDR + EDR – By consolidating XDR and EDR functionality into one tool, Intercept X helps organizations reduce subscriptions, costs, and confusion (to some extent).
• Good integrations – Intercept X integrates well with other products from the wider Sophos security suite.
• MDR support – The product has strong managed detection and response (MDR) support across all tiers.

Intercept X Cons:

It would be ideal to have response actions for all third-party integrations available with the product, rather than just a few. More refined and detailed reporting on the XDR/EDR interface is necessary for detection.

There should also be an option to run queries to detect vulnerabilities depending on CVE ID.

Intercept X User Review, via G2

While Intercept X is generally a popular product, it’s by no means perfect. Sophos claims to be a one-stop-shop for cybersecurity, but there are a number of key gaps and challenges in the feature set that make this only partially true:

• EDR – Despite the combination of XDR and EDR tools, the functionality in the latter area remains quite limited. It lacks the ability to customize both granular detection rules and the level of detection severity. The analyst workflow is also not as sophisticated as rival tools.
• Siloed consoles – While most admin functionality is available through Sophos Central, users have to access a separate console, Sophos Factory, to manage automation pipelines. This creates confusion and makes it difficult to get a 360-degree view of endpoint detection.
• Multiple tools – Though additional Sophos products cover vulnerability management and privileged access management, they don’t support non-Windows devices and aren’t native to Intercept X. This can create gaps in a company’s security strategy or require multiple overlapping tools to fill them.
• Traffic coverage – Intercept X only covers HTTP, which constitutes about 8% of traffic attack angles. Other products like Heimdal offer HTTP, HTTPs, and DNS support, which covers the full 100% of angles. This creates another key gap that might require additional products to fill.

About Trend Micro: Vision One

Like Sophos, Trend Micro offers a whole range of different cybersecurity products. But the endpoint detection solution, Vision One, is the most prominent of the pack – and can be most closely compared with Intercept X.

Trend Micro’s marketing material leans heavily on the cloud-native approach of Vision One and the breadth of operating systems supported. Indeed, the platform features extensive support across cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments, while still supporting on-premises systems. It also features extensive support for legacy operating systems – a particular highlight over Intercept X.

Like Sophos, Trend Micro positions Vision One as a proactive and preventative cybersecurity tool. In some ways, this is correct, as there are effective features to help identify phishing attempts and protect against zero-day exploits. There are also good integrations with other Vision One products like Trend Micro OfficeScan.

But there remain some fundamental gaps in the feature set that make it less proactive than some competitors. Like Sophos, it doesn’t offer native vulnerability management or privileged access management tools. Customers therefore may need to combine it with additional Trend Micro or third-party products to get a comprehensive, preventative defense.

Main features of Trend Micro include:

• Extended detection and response (XDR);
• Application surface risk management (ASRM);
• Phishing protection;
• Firewalls;
• Cloud-native security across hybrid, multi-cloud, data centers, and other systems;
• Endpoint, email, and network security;
• Accelerated detection and response.

Vision One Pros:

• Cloud-native – Vision One is an effective tool for handling cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid deployments.
• Legacy support – The platform offers much broader support than Intercept X, which mainly focuses on Windows. In contrast, Trend Micro supports most common operating systems, as well as rarer options like IBX AIX, Oracle Solaris, and Red Hat OpenShift.
• Price – Though Trend Micro doesn’t publish pricing information, reviews generally agree that it is one of the more cost-effective solutions on the market.
• User interface – Users generally praise the simple UX of Vision One. The design of the monitoring interface is particularly popular, since it provides a single monitoring window that covers endpoints, servers, and cloud environments.

Vision One Cons:

The product information on how to use the workbench or investigate detections is poorly documented and no PDF documentation on how to use the product to its full features is available.

Trend Micro User Review, via G2

There are many clear reasons why Vision One is a popular solution among its customers. But while Trend Micro considers itself an all-in-one cybersecurity provider, this isn’t always consistently true of the Vision One product. While its support remains extensive, there are still many gaps and challenges that customers discuss:

• Functionality gaps – Despite claiming to have a complete, proactive approach, there are still significant functionality gaps in Vision One. This includes traffic-based malware detection, DNS security, vulnerability management, and privileged access management (PAM). While some are available in other Trend Micro products, organizations will generally have to string together multiple subscriptions to fill these gaps.
• Some MSSP support – The product offers a limited level of support for MSSPs, having acquired the managed SOC provider Anlyz in 2023. However, there remain some challenges here, since users don’t have access to centralized configuration and policy management from within the MSSP console.
• Documentation – Some users have also noted that Vision One’s documentation is not very extensive.
• Confusing payment – Vision One’s pricing structure has reportedly caused issues and some confusion for customers. It uses a unique system based on credits for different features in the platform. While some appreciate this approach, many find it confusing and difficult to predict.

Sophos vs. Trend Micro: Reviews

Reviews for both Sophos and Trend Micro are fairly consistent. They’re well reviewed by their customer bases and have fairly similar scores of between 4.5-5/5 across most major review sites. Here are the highlights from two major sites:

Gartner:

G2:

There’s not a huge amount here to choose between them. But if we dig into the details of the reviews, we can reveal more information about the relative strengths and weaknesses of each product.

Intercept X was generally well-liked among its customer base for the strength of its detection and response functionality. Some users also noted the smooth integration with other Sophos tools.

I appreciate Intercept X for its robust protection against a wide range of threats. It integrates seamlessly with other Sophos security products, such as firewalls and email security solutions.

Intercept X User Review, via G2

However, some reviews also noted downsides to the platform. This included the overall price (Sophos does not publish pricing information) and resource-intensive nature of the product:

Resource-intensive, especially during scans and updates, which may impact the performance of older devices. Limited reporting capabilities may make it difficult to track and analyze security events and incidents. Expensive for small and startup organizations.

Intercept X User Review, via G2

When it comes to Trend Micro, reviewers were also generally quite positive, particularly noting the platform’s ease of use.

The platform is intuitive to navigate, even for first-timers. The platform is under constant evolution and new features are getting added.

Vision One User Review, via G2

However, a number of gripes were common, including the complex pricing structure and lack of documentation. Some also noted key gaps in the platform’s functionality, compared with other competing products.

Vision One is a young solution, and we encounter several problems related to features that are not yet in final version. We also have some endpoints that do not show up in the console, even though they have all the features activated.

Vision One User Review, via G2

Overall, while both products were well-praised, there’s a consensus among users that each product has its own particular gaps and challenges.

Is There an Alternative to Sophos and TrendMicro?

Short answer: Yes.

Intercept X and Vision One might be popular tools – but they’re not the only options available. As we’ve explained already, both platforms have considerable functionality gaps that mean they can’t realistically claim to be a complete, proactive cybersecurity solution.

The best tools on the market offer all the cybersecurity functionality you need from one platform. That includes everything from the EDM tools of Sophos and TrendMicro to vulnerability management, privileged account management, and more.

This is exactly what Heimdal offers. Across seven key modules, Heimdal’s extended detection and response (XDR) platform aims to bring all the functionality you’ll need into one integrated interface. That involves:

• Network security – Implement proactive security protections across your whole environment, through network DNS security and cloud ransomware protection.
• Endpoint security – Protect laptops, desktops, and mobile devices through endpoint DNS security, next-gen antivirus, firewalls, mobile device management (MDM), and ransomware encryption protection.
• Vulnerability management – Find, isolate, and remediate unpatched software vulnerabilities to remove potential entry points before hackers find them.
• Privileged access management – Reduce your overall attack surface by eliminating unnecessary accounts with elevated permissions, and tightening controls on those that are necessary. Includes privileged account and session management (PASM), privileged elevation and detection management (PEDM), and application control.
• Email and collaboration security – Protect against phishing attacks and email-based data breaches with a holistic security tool that includes email security and email fraud prevention.
• Threat hunting – Identify and respond to realtime threats through the threat hunting and action center.
• Unified endpoint management – Manage, consolidate, and secure all your endpoints from one location using our Remote Desktop and BitLocker Management tools.

The goal of Heimdal is to offer the full suite of functionality from one easy-to-use platform. Crucially, that involves both vulnerability management and privileged access management – neither of which are available as standard in Intercept X or Vision One.

Ultimately, this means Heimdal users can implement a much more proactive and effective approach to cybersecurity, without requiring overlapping subscriptions, licenses, and products.

How to Choose the Right Solution for Your Business

Whatever cybersecurity solution you end up choosing, it’s important to properly consider the pros and cons for your business. No two companies or IT environments are the same – which is why there are so many different solutions on offer.

But regardless of which product you choose, it’s vital to consolidate your tools as much as possible. The best cybersecurity product on the market won’t be much use if it only covers half of your IT environment. That’s why it’s so important to consider what operating systems need supporting, as well as what endpoints, cloud systems, on-premises servers, or virtual instances you might have.

Ultimately, whatever you choose, the best solution for you will offer the widest functionality and support across the fewest possible overlapping subscriptions and licenses. If you’re looking for a simple way to make a decision, this is by far the best place to start.

FAQs: Sophos vs. Trend Micro

Sophos vs. Trend Micro: Which platform is the best?

Both platforms have their own strengths and weaknesses. Sophos is generally praised for its advanced XDR functionality, while Trend Micro users appreciate its cloud-native approach and wide support. Both have key gaps in their functionality, however with privileged access management and vulnerability management not being available in either.

What is Sophos Intercept X?

Intercept X is the main Sophos endpoint detection product, combining EDR and XDR functionality. It offers sophisticated antivirus and anti-ransomware protections and integrates well with products in the wider Sophos security suite. However, there remain some gaps in functionality, particularly regarding extended detection and response.

Is Trend Micro a Good Antivirus?

Trend Micro is rated 4.6/5 stars by Gartner and 4.7/5 stars by G2. Users generally appreciate its cloud-native approach and wide support across operating systems. It’s also helpful for companies that still use an on-premise server alongside cloud systems. However, there remain some key gaps in functionality, including traffic-based malware detection, DNS security, vulnerability management, and privileged access management (PAM).

Cristian is a Content Editor & Creator at Heimdal®, where he developed a deep understanding of the digital threat landscape. His style resonates with both technical and non-technical readers, proof being in his skill of communicating cybersecurity norms effectively, in an easy-to-understand manner.

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