Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are both strong endpoint security solutions with different strengths. Cortex XDR offers advanced threat detection and investigation capabilities with a focus on extended detection and response (XDR). Microsoft Defender for Endpoint emphasizes robust security measures and leverages tight integration with other Microsoft products for a comprehensive security posture.
The summary above is based on 214 interviews we conducted recently with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft Defender users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"It is stable and scalable."
"Fortinet FortiEDR's firewalling, rule creation, monitoring, and inspection profiles are great."
"The main thing is that I feel safe. Because the processes that have been used to get a handle on the attackers are much better than other competitors"
"We have FortiEDR installed on all our systems. This protects them from any threats."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiEDR's scalability is quite good, and you can add licenses to the solution."
"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."
"It is a scalable solution...The initial setup of Fortinet FortiEDR was straightforward."
"The solution doesn't need a high level of technical training."
"Stability is one of the features we like the most."
"Cortex XDR is a simple platform that's easy for administrators and users. You have a lot of flexibility to change or customize the features."
"Traps is quite a stable product. Once it was properly deployed and configured, you have nothing to be worried about."
"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"The most valuable features are the fact that it was running in the background and it would intercept any weird stuff, and the fact that it would send things directly to the cloud for sandboxing. It's quite practical."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"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."
"Provides good security features and you can view it in the central console."
"It doesn't cause the slowness of the system, which is one of the reasons why I like it."
"For threat-hunting, I'll put some threats in a test scenario. I've downloaded known viruses that are out in the public for testing. They're not really a virus but they've got a signature. Defender for Endpoint will automatically find those, quarantine them for me, and alert me to what it did. It gives me "automated eyes.""
"DFE organizational security posture has been a positive experience. We're a Microsoft house. It works. Once it's deployed and once it's configured, it works and our clients tend to be happy with it. I haven't really experienced anyone who has been so unsatisfied with the platform that they wanted to go a couple of different directions, that has never happened to me."
"I've started to test it from the security point of view. There are plenty of features that are interesting, but at this time, the XDR functionality is most valuable. It is endpoint security on steroids."
"We apply the DLP policies across a range of endpoints and it is very accurate when reporting vulnerabilities, including those in email attachments."
"The EDR feature is most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to effectively detect threats. It has the EDR feature, endpoint detection and response, and that is very good."
"Once, we had an event that was locked and blocked, but information about it came to us two or three days later."
"The amount of usage, the number of details we get, or the number of options that can be tweaked is limited in comparison to that with other EDR solutions"
"The solution should address emerging threats like SQL injection."
"I haven't seen the use of AI in the solution."
"There's room for improvement in the quick response time and technical support for integration issues, especially when dealing with multiple vendors."
"Integration with Azure and SaaS provisioning tools could improve Fortinet FortiEDR."
"Detections could be improved."
"The support needs improvement."
"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"The dashboard is the area that needs to improve so that we can have the ability to drill down without having to go elsewhere to verify results."
"In the next release, I would like to see more UI improvements. Their UI is a bit basic. When we are speaking about Palo Alto Networks they are the big company, so they can improve the UI a little bit. The UI, the reports, the log system can all be improved."
"Currently, we are monitoring all USB drives and ports but we would like to improve our device control capabilities."
"The dashboard could use some significant improvement, just making it more useful with more information. It has a limited amount of information right now. It is customizable, but I'd love to see a better out-of-box dashboard."
"The solution lacks real-time, on-demand antivirus."
"The setup is quite easy. We had appropriate support from the manager. One thing that was missing was the integration part."
"Data privacy is a matter of concern. You have to be careful with data privacy, it can be sensitive and Cortex can have most of your access."
"I would like MDE to have the ability to isolate a certain amount of time on the timeline."
"Cortex... has good investigation capabilities, out-of-the-box, in case there is an event that you'd like to investigate. It's quite convenient. Microsoft has those capabilities as well, but you need a bit more training on the product to get the basic information that you can get out-of-the-box with Cortex."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by making the reporting better."
"There are likely some technical improvements or features that could be added, however, I cannot say, off the top of my head, what they would be."
"There's a lot of manual effort involved to configure what we need."
"It makes your Surface devices hot. It is resource-intensive. It strains your CPU, not more than other file scanners around, but it also does a lot more. When you are transmitting files or data, it is continuously scanning the traffic and analyzing it bit by bit to see what's going on, and that, of course, is costly in terms of CPU. It is CPU intensive, and if you are on battery, it drains your battery fast. That's the only drawback that it has."
"It would be helpful if they offered video tutorial guides."
"Right now, the solution provides some recommendations on the dashboard but we don't have any priorities. It's a mix of all the vulnerabilities and all the security recommendations. I would like to see some priority or categorization of high, medium, and low so that we can fix the high ones first."
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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 Endpoint is ranked 1st in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 182 reviews. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks writes "It provides a whole new level of visibility and integrates with most other vendors". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "Eliminates the need to look at multiple dashboards by automatically providing one XDR dashboard to show the security score of each subscription". Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Darktrace, Symantec Endpoint Security, Trend Micro Apex One and SentinelOne Singularity Complete, whereas Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity Complete and Fortinet FortiClient. See our Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint report.
See our list of best Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) vendors and best Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) vendors.
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I have not used Microsoft Defender and only used Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. My experience with Cortex is not good as you need to whitelist each and every exe file of each adn every computer. My recommendation for you is to go for Cynet360 MDR which is far better than Cortex in terms of auto detection and remediation. You will get genuine alert.
Choosing Microsoft Defender makes the most sense if you already have a Microsoft ecosystem. But in reality, you need an endpoint security solution that is proactive and comes with built-in artificial intelligence capabilities.
I value in-depth visibility across the endpoints, so I prefer CrowdStrike Falcon EDR. It’s the best solution for simplified endpoint detection and response. CrowdStrike EDR comes with advanced features and easily integrates with popular third-party solutions like Splunk and Palo Alto Networks. An easy-to-use and navigate interface reduces the learning curve. Personally, I think CrowdStrike Falcon is easier to use than Microsoft Defender.
MSSPs like ACE Managed Security Services provide Managed CrowdStrike EDR. If you’re looking for hassle-free deployment and a fully-managed solution, you should look into ACE.
Unless you are using Palo Alto elsewhere in your architecture, I would go with Microsoft if that were the only choice.
However, if you are using another network security issue such as Fortinet or Sophos, I would also look to their endpoint solutions. They both have EDR and XDR capabilities and the endpoint solutions facilitate synchronization between the endpoint and the network control.
Microsoft has done lots of work in the endpoint space and the Zero Trust world over the past several months. Defender integrates tightly with the Microsoft Cloud and there is much synchronization that occurs between the physical endpoint and the cloud infrastructure. This means that regardless where the endpoint is physically located it stays connected and controlled by the policies set in the Microsoft cloud. Very much like the Group Policy Options we became accustomed to with the on premises domain controller.
I know that's a scratch on the surface and there are many other considerations, but you need to seek the solutions that promise management simplicity and the ability to control and protect the endpoints wherever they may be located.
I would go for the one with the best independent threat intelligence, a platform that allows you to change, add, move IT and Security infrastructure without impacting your security platform. I would also place a close attention to storage costs, service levels and the number of resources providing human intelligence on top of machine intelligence for investigation and incident response, all in one platform. But I am biased ;-)