We performed a comparison between Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft 365 Defender based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cortex XDR offers an intuitive interface, advanced identification of risks, expandability, and compatibility with various other solutions. Microsoft 365 Defender offers effortless integration with other Microsoft solutions. Users praised its flexibility and comprehensive protection against multiple threat types. Cortex XDR could use enhancements in hard disk encryption, security integration, and customer education. Microsoft 365 Defender could upgrade its machine learning and AI capabilities. Some users suggested adopting Zero Trust features.
Service and Support: Some customers were impressed with Palo Alto's support, while others reported mixed experiences. Some of our reviewers were satisfied with Microsoft's support, but others complained about slow responses and lackluster problem-solving capabilities.
Ease of Deployment: Some users thought Cortex XDR’s deployment was fast and straightforward, while others consider it to be a complex and time-consuming task that requires thorough planning. Setting up Microsoft 365 Defender is potentially complex and may involve integrating with existing policies. Some users reported longer deployment times.
Pricing: Some reviewers said Cortex XDR is expensive, but others said it was reasonable for the robust feature set Cortex offers. Some users say that Microsoft 365 Defender is good value, but other users perceive it as more expensive than similar competing products.
ROI: Cortex XDR creates value by ensuring system and data security rather than a financial return on investment. Microsoft 365 Defender offers savings, attack prevention, consolidation of security measures, and proactive threat detection.
Comparison Results: Our users prefer Cortex XDR over Microsoft 365 Defender. Cortex XDR offers a comprehensive platform with excellent visibility, protection, and control over network endpoints. Users appreciate the simplicity and efficiency of Cortex XDR's initial setup, as well as its ease of maintenance and updates. Microsoft 365 Defender receives mixed reviews about its initial setup, pricing, and customer support.
"The stability is very good."
"The ease of deployment and configuration is valuable. It's very easy compared to other vendors like Sophos. Sophos' configuration is complex. Fortinet is a lot easier to understand. You don't need a lot of admin knowledge to do the configuration."
"We have FortiEDR installed on all our systems. This protects them from any threats."
"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."
"Having all monitoring, response, tracking, and mitigation tools in one dashboard provides our analysts and SOC team with a comprehensive view at a glance."
"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 solution was relatively easy to deploy."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the ability to customize it and to reduce its size. It lets you run in a very small window in terms of memory and resources on legacy cash registers."
"The behavior-based detection feature is valuable."
"We can visualize and control the activities in the environment from anywhere."
"The multi-layered approach to the product gives you confidence that it will stop exploits, ransomware, worms, or viruses from compromising endpoints, essentially providing peace of mind."
"The most valuable feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is its machine-learning capabilities. Additionally, there is full integration with other solutions."
"It can automatically correlate events and logs, which is very helpful for an IT administrator. It can correlate different kinds of malware activities over a network, agent, or host system. You do not need to do it manually. It is a good feature. It is also a user-friendly solution. We have deployed it on the cloud because our space does not provide any flexibility for on-premises deployment, but Palo Alto has added some flexibility to install it on-premises. It must be like the same Cortex XDR agent for all the VPN services, web filtering services, and everything else."
"If the user leaves our premises or network, Palo Alto Traps will still be on that endpoint and will still apply our policies."
"The product's most valuable features are massive user and feature intelligence exploit detection."
"Traps has drastically reduced our endpoint attack surface via advanced detection capabilities, sandboxing of never before seen programs, and by drastically limiting where executables can launch in the first place."
"All of the security components are valuable including, antiphishing, antispam, and stage three antivirus."
"There is also one dashboard that shows us the status of many controls at once and the details I can get... It gives a great overview of many areas, such as files, emails, chats, and links. Even with the apps, it gives you a great overview. In one place you can see where you should look into things more deeply..."
"The best feature is threat hunting. There are a lot of other features I like, such as the alert mechanism. The chain alert mechanism has a huge impact. It combines all the alerts into one incident and automatically correlates them with AI."
"Microsoft XDR's system of analysis and investigation is super convenient for our customers. It integrates with other Microsoft solutions like Defender for 365 to protect email traffic from malicious external web links and phishing."
"Microsoft 365 Defender's most valuable feature is the ability to control the shadow IP."
"The product integrates security into one tool instead of having third-party security tools."
"Among the most valuable features are the alert timeline, the alert story, which is pretty detailed. It gives us complete insight into what exactly happened on the endpoint. It doesn't just say, "Malware detected." It tells us what caused that malware to be detected and how it was detected. It gives us a complete timeline from beginning to end."
"The most valuable feature is probably the aggregation and correlation of the different telemetry points with Defender for Identity, Defender for Endpoint, and Defender for Cloud Apps. All of these various things are part of that portal. We've wanted that single pane of glass for years."
"The solution should address emerging threats like SQL injection."
"The support needs improvement."
"I haven't seen the use of AI in the solution."
"The solution is not stable."
"Making the portal mobile friendly would be helpful when I am out of office."
"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."
"The security should be strong for the cloud. Some applications are on-prem and some are on the cloud. Fortinet should also have strong security for the cloud. There should be more security for the cloud."
"FortiEDR can be improved by providing more detailed reporting."
"The solution can never really be an on-premises solution based simply on the way it is set up. It needs metadata to run and improve. Having an on-premises solution would cut it off from making improvements."
"It would be good if they could make an exception for applications. Sometimes, it can be a bit of a challenge to make exceptions for certain applications that have been used as rogue."
"There are a large number of false positives."
"Cortex XDR should have a lightweight agent, and the agent size should not be heavy."
"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"The setup is quite easy. We had appropriate support from the manager. One thing that was missing was the integration part."
"I would like to see better protection, specifically to protect email applications."
"The solution could improve by providing better integration with their own products and others."
"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."
"When we do investigations, it would be better if Microsoft could populate the host dashboard more. When we open any host for investigation, we want the entire timeline of what is happening on the host, including all the users logging in, their hardware, Windows version, etc."
"There are still some components, such as vulnerability management within the vendor product, where improved integration would be beneficial."
"Microsoft frequently changes the names of its products, sometimes even renaming entire portals or features."
"The management and automation of the cloud apps have room for improvement."
"The Defender agent itself is more compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11. Other than these two lines, there are so many compatibility issues. Security is not only about Microsoft. The core technical aspects of it are quite good, but it would be good if they can better support non-Microsoft solutions in terms of putting the agents directly into VMware and other virtualization solutions. There should be more emphasis on RHEL and other operating systems that we use, other than Windows, in the server category."
"Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected."
"Microsoft 365 Defender does not have a unique package with emerging endpoint security technologies, such as EDR and XDR."
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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 4th in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with 80 reviews while Microsoft Defender XDR is ranked 5th in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with 78 reviews. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Defender XDR is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks writes "Perfect correlation and XDR capabilities for network traffic plus endpoint security". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender XDR writes "Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot". Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, Darktrace, Symantec Endpoint Security and Check Point Harmony Endpoint, whereas Microsoft Defender XDR is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager, Wazuh and Microsoft Entra ID. See our Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Microsoft Defender XDR report.
See our list of best Extended Detection and Response (XDR) vendors and best Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) vendors.
We monitor all Extended Detection and Response (XDR) 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.