We performed a comparison between Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike Falcon based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products receive high marks from reviewers. However, CrowdStrike Falcon comes out on top in this comparison due to its robust performance, ease of deployment, reasonable cost, and impressive ROI.
"I like Defender XDR's automation capabilities. XDR isn't automated by default, but you can automate it to respond. If an attack is performed anywhere within the organization, you can isolate that instance from the network. This is what I can figure out for it. When integrated with Sentinel, you can set up playbooks to automate all the alerts gathered on Sentinel from different Microsoft solutions. Sentinel has a wider range of capabilities than XDR."
"I have found the ability to delete unwanted threats beneficial."
"The most valuable feature of all is the full integration with the rest of the software in the operating system and Office 365, as well as Microsoft SCCM. It is quite easy for us to work with the whole instance of Microsoft products. This integration improves the benefits of the whole suite of products."
"It's a very scalable tool that can be used in a very small environment or in a very large environment. Everything can be managed from a simple dashboard and can be scaled up or down depending on the customer's environment."
"The integration with other Microsoft solutions is the most valuable feature."
"It provides a single pane of glass within the 365 admin interface, streamlining our experience by consolidating information in one place and eliminating the need to navigate through multiple interfaces."
"It has been great for us. Previously, we didn't have a solution to protect us, especially from malware, whereas now, we are getting protection up front, especially from the malware attacks coming through emails or endpoints."
"The Endpoint Manager is incredible; it has a very straightforward interface and is exceedingly easy to use. Pulling out and deploying different tags or resources is a simple task across various departments with different levels of security. The notifications are also simple and satisfying; it's great to see the bubble informing us which devices are compliant and which are waiting to update."
"The interface is easy to use and it is more up to date than our previous solution."
"It collects and caches and the knowledge of machine learning from different customers to take to the cloud. It makes it better to use for everybody. It allows for quick learning and updates and can, therefore, offer zero-day malware security. This sharing of metadata helps make the solution very safe."
"We can visualize and control the activities in the environment from anywhere."
"The solution is a new generation XDR that has a lot of artificial intelligence modules."
"The protection offered by this product is good, as is the endpoint reporting."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is easy to use and does not consume a lot of hardware resources."
"It is easy to use."
"One thing that I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, it is detecting all the suspicious or malicious binaries, and it has integration with Palo Alto Firewall."
"The initial setup is a very fast process."
"I like the dashboard nature of it. Everything is clickable, linkable, and information is easy to obtain and find. How it presents that information is probably the biggest win as far as the information correlation aspect. The presentation of it is very good."
"The most useful feature is that we do not need to install or keep signature files. Regular scanning that consumes a lot of computer resources is not needed."
"The scalability is good."
"We like Falcon's network visibility. We can see how threats are evolving on PCS or in the company network. The solution's real-time incident response is very fast."
"This solution consistently releases improvements. They have communicated their next two years of development which is powerful and covers all of our needs."
"The DLP is the most valuable feature of CrowdStrike Falcon."
"I have found the connection to search the hosts for detections very useful in CrowdStrike Falcon."
"In the future, it would be beneficial for Microsoft to consider making the product more user-friendly or simplified for those who are interested in using it. Currently, it requires a high level of technical expertise, making it challenging for beginners or less experienced individuals."
"The advanced threat-hunting capabilities are phenomenal, and the security copilot enhances that, but some data elements could be better or have more context inside of the advanced tables themselves. The schemas feel a little limited to what they're building into the product. It's probably just a maturity thing. I imagine we'll see the features I want in the next year."
"There are a few technical issues with Defender XDR that can be improved. Sometimes, the endpoint devices are not reporting properly to the Defender 365 portal. When you're getting all the information from the Microsoft portal, the devices are sometimes not in sync. We have hundreds of endpoint devices, some needing to be onboarded again."
"The onboarding and offboarding need improvement. I work with other vendors as well, and they have an option to add a device or remove a device from the portal, whereas with Microsoft 365 Defender, we need to do that manually. However, once you do that, everything can be controlled through the portal, but getting the device onboarded and offboarded is currently manual. If we have an option to simply remove a device from the portal or get a device added from the portal, it would be more convenient. The rest of the features are similar. This is the only area where I found it different from others. I would also like to be able to simply filter with a few of the queries that are already there."
"Microsoft 365 Defender does not have a unique package with emerging endpoint security technologies, such as EDR and XDR."
"We should be able to use the product on devices like Apple, Linux, etc."
"Generally, antivirus products provide a central control to manage every device in terms of who is installing it or who is trying to disable it, but Microsoft doesn't have such a control center for the antivirus product it provides."
"There is definitely scope for improvement in the automation area. Because the solution is a SaaS platform, we don't have the overall ability to automate stuff.... There is no direct way to go ahead because it's a SaaS platform."
"It would be better if they could educate the customers more. Some sort of seminars and roadshows will help educate the customers and show what the product can do. The price could be better. It would also help if they had a team for deployment and support."
"The tool needs to be improved in terms of integration and interface."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by proving hard disk encryption. If it could support this it would be a complete solution."
"Cortex XDR is trickier to configure than other Palo Alto products. This is one area where we are not so satisfied."
"The solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"The encryption is not up to the mark."
"Cortex does not offer an on-premises solution. However, some customers would prefer not to be on the cloud. It would be ideal if it could offer something on-prem as well."
"They have the worst support, as a company, that I have ever worked with, as they are difficult to get a hold of and keep on the phone. They don't know what they are talking about when you get them on the phone. They don't like to respond to messages when you send them to them. They like to "research problems" for weeks on end, then pass you off to somebody else."
"They respond quickly on the weekdays, but the weekend response times are slower."
"Any kind of integration that you want to do, such as using the API to connect to a SIEM, is complex and it will be expensive to do."
"CrowdStrike costs a little more than its competitors."
"CrowdStrike Suites and the way that it bundles things can be a bit challenging. It should be easier to integrate with the other stuff that they sell or be included with what they sell. We have one piece, then they are talking about another piece on vulnerability management all of the sudden, and we don't own that piece. We can see it in the console, but nothing shows up. It simply appears within the tool as an option, but we can't use it without purchasing it."
"For CrowdStrike to work, all the machines need to have an internet connection. This makes it challenging to assist customers without an internet connection. We would like to have a mechanism or relay to make this possible."
"The management of the solution could improve."
"The dashboard area must be improved. We have integration with Splunk, and we are creating a dashboard there. Their dashboard area must be up to date. It should have more details and more options to create the reports and things like that."
"The dashboard does not have the facility to export the reports in a PDF format, which I can quickly share with internal stakeholders."
More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 4th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 80 reviews while CrowdStrike Falcon is ranked 3rd in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 110 reviews. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4, while CrowdStrike Falcon is rated 8.6. 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 CrowdStrike Falcon writes "Easy to set up with good behavior-based analysis but needs a single-click recovery option". Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Darktrace, Symantec Endpoint Security, Fortinet FortiEDR and Trellix Endpoint Security, whereas CrowdStrike Falcon is most compared with Darktrace, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Trend Micro Deep Security, Trend Vision One and Check Point Harmony Endpoint. See our Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. CrowdStrike Falcon report.
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