We performed a comparison between Cortex XDR By Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft Defender for Cloud based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between the two solutions is that Cortex XDR users say the solution is expensive while Microsoft Defender for Cloud users consider the solution to be fairly priced.
"Having all monitoring, response, tracking, and mitigation tools in one dashboard provides our analysts and SOC team with a comprehensive view at a glance."
"The console is easy to read. I also like the scanning part and the ability to move assets from one to the other."
"NGAV and EDR features are outstanding."
"Fortinet FortiEDR's scalability is quite good, and you can add licenses to the solution."
"Exceptions are easy to create and the interface is easy to follow with a nice appearance."
"It is very easy to set up. I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, with ten being very easy to set up."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"It is stable and scalable."
"They did what they said. This solution could apply to any scenario."
"This software helps us understand any issues that may arise when someone is not at work."
"Their XDR agent and their behavioral indicators of compromise (BIOC) are pretty nice. Their managed threat hunting is also pretty nice. They also have WildFire, which is a service for actively looking for malware. It's quite useful."
"Monitoring is most valuable."
"It's a nice product that's stable and scalable."
"It is easy to use."
"The management capabilities, allow an IT organization to get quite a good picture of attempted cyber attacks."
"The anti-exploit is impenetrable. We chose Traps because it is the only product that we were not able to get anything past."
"It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
"The security policy is the most valuable feature for us. We can go into the environment settings and attach any globally recognized framework like ISO or any benchmark."
"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution."
"When we started out, our secure score was pretty low. We adopted some of the recommendations that Security Center set out and we were able to make good progress on improving it. It had been in the low thirties and is now in the upper eighties."
"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."
"The most valuable features are ransomware protection and access controls. The solution has helped us secure some folders on our systems from unauthorized modifications."
"The dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance."
"The first valuable feature was the fact that it gave us a list of everything that users were surfing on the web. Having the list, we could make decisions about those sites."
"Integration with Azure and SaaS provisioning tools could improve Fortinet FortiEDR."
"Making the portal mobile friendly would be helpful when I am out of office."
"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."
"The solution should address emerging threats like SQL injection."
"We'd like to see more one-to-one product presentations for the distribution channels."
"Everything with Fortinet having to do with their cloud services. They need to invest more in their internal infrastructure that they are running in the cloud. One of the things I find with their cloud environment compared to others' is that they go cheap on the equipment. So it causes some performance degradation."
"ZTNA can improve latency."
"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around. In the hotel industry, we use a different type of data versus Oracle and SQL. By default, there are some policies which stop us from running properly. Because of this, the support level is also not that strong. We have to wait to get a results."
"There are a large number of false positives."
"It is not easy to sell Cortex XDR, not because it isn't a good tool. Its marketing needs to be improved."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"Traps doesn't work with McAfee. You need to remove McAfee to install Traps. This is very common, and its nothing that should be an issue. Some antivirus engines recognize Traps as an threat component, so maybe they need to shake hands somewhere."
"We would also like to have advanced tech protection and email scanning."
"I would like to see some additional features related to email protection included."
"I felt that there was disconnection in terms of understanding the UI. The communication for moving from the old UI to the new UI could be improved. It was a bit awkward."
"It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."
"Agent features need to be improved. They support agents through Azure Arc or Workbench. Sometimes, we are not able to get correct signals from the machines on which we have installed these agents. We are not able to see how many are currently reporting to Azure Security Center, and how many are currently not reporting. For example, we have 1,000 machines, and we have enrolled 1,000 OMS agents on these machines to collect the log. When I look at the status, even though at some places, it shows that it is connected, but when I actually go and check, I'm not getting any alerts from those. There are some discrepancies on the agent, and the agent features are not up to the mark."
"The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge."
"Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research."
"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."
"Pricing could be improved. There are limited options based on pricing for the government."
"The documentation and implementation guides could be improved."
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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 4th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 80 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 3rd in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) with 46 reviews. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0. 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 for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, Darktrace, Symantec Endpoint Security and ESET Endpoint Protection Platform, whereas Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Defender XDR, Wiz and Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP. See our Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.
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.