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Bitdefender GravityZone XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Bitdefender GravityZone XDR
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (28th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Container Management (6th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (7th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Bitdefender GravityZone XDR1.2%
SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint6.4%
Wazuh5.4%
Other87.0%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud10.7%
Wiz8.6%
AWS GuardDuty8.0%
Other72.7%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
Jörg Köhler - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at AvalisNT AG
Setup is smooth and management is seamless, while improvements in email filtering transparency enhance efficiency
For data correlation, we just haven't worked long enough with it to assess its impact on our overall threat response strategy. We prefer a system that simply informs us when there is a problem; we don't want to engage too much in threat hunting. Therefore, we're not looking to create a SOC from this, which is also why we moved from XDR to MDR. There are areas for improvement, including the difficulty in getting the right handles on the applied email filters. It's sometimes unclear why one email is treated as spam and another is not, even if they contain similar content. Making the process of how emails are treated a bit more transparent would be beneficial.
RW
Head Of IT at Cirrus Response
Cloud security has cut investigation time and now reveals threats faster but needs simpler oversight
When deploying AI applications, my key security concerns with Microsoft Defender for Cloud are data loss, leakage of data, and guardrails around the actual AI, and I am hoping that this is going to help me put those guardrails in place and identify data exfiltration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not helped me manage and secure multi-cloud environments, as we are 100 percent Microsoft and have not really got it in any other environment at all. I am not yet using the unified AI-powered security feature offered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet using the integrated XDR feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet utilizing the GenAI threat protection features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. That is also coming and a lot of that will come from learning it here. I have enabled the agentless scanning in my cloud environment with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Assessing the impact on my workload protection without needing to install agents with Microsoft Defender for Cloud makes it a lot easier, but it also identifies a lot more, which puts more load on me sometimes. I would advise another organization considering Microsoft Defender for Cloud that it is the most logical route to follow if their whole ecosystem is Microsoft. It is easy to implement and it is very self-explanatory when doing it, making sense to just follow the steps as it is too simple, really. I would rate this review a 7.5 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Implementing Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks has had a significant impact on my security analyst workload because it becomes much easier."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks has changed the way my security team detects, investigates, and responds to threats, as we are able to see the files, unwanted files, unsecured files, and unauthorized files, so we are quarantining them."
"Cortex XDR can integrate the firewalls and determine the tendencies of the attacks. It's a new generation antivirus, with protection endpoints and detection response. It is very easy to use and everybody can operate the solution."
"Cortex is a very good total solution on the endpoints."
"When the pandemic started, Palo Alto came up with many solutions, which helped with the quick shift from on-premises to the cloud."
"The anti-exploit is impenetrable."
"If the user leaves our premises or network, Palo Alto Traps will still be on that endpoint and will still apply our policies."
"Has great threat detection capabilities."
"I find that the auto-response capability is most valuable."
"I would rate GravityZone XDR more than nine out of ten."
"The HyperDetect feature in GravityZone XDR is effective."
"I appreciate the overall utilization of AI to enhance security posture."
"It provides an in-depth analysis and gives recommendations, along with a historical search capability."
"Since then, we are working with it, and so far, we have no problems; it's working smoothly with email security."
"The solution has an automatic patch management capability."
"Scalability is pretty easy. It's easy to increase the capacity. You can just add on licenses to the existing license, and the duration of the license can be adjusted. For example, you've already bought a license for a year, and you want to add some more users. We can just add on licenses for the remaining period so that the entire organization can have the same expiry date. That makes renewal easier."
"For organizations who have an on-prem environment and are planning to move to a cloud-based solution, Azure Security Center is definitely one of the best tools that they can use."
"With respect to improving our security posture, it helps us to understand where we are in terms of compliance. We can easily know when we are below the standard because of the scores it calculates."
"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution."
"The dashboard is very good; it gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system, with everything visible in one glance."
"If you are a Microsoft organization and most of your organization uses Microsoft, Microsoft Defender for Cloud will be the best approach as it provides the easiest implementation to the most robust solution for a Microsoft suite."
"The notification process of Microsoft Defender for Cloud has been the most valuable feature. The notification process is effortless, as it can tell me right there and then locate issues pretty fast, saving us a lot of time by not having to dig through all the warnings."
"Our main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Cloud involve scanning PCs."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has helped us manage and secure our cloud environments, and having observability to vulnerabilities is important for us so that we can take actions against any threats."
 

Cons

"I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response). Then it would work well with SIEM Response."
"The tool needs to be improved in terms of integration and interface."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"The GUI could be improved."
"It would be good to have a better way to search for a file within the UI."
"I have faced some issues with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks; there is room for improvement in the sense that certain options prevent us from seeing and segregating data."
"Whenever the tool releases a new version when deploying the product across the organization, I feel like there are some disturbances in the CPU usage after upgrading the tool to the latest version."
"I think sometimes Cortex XDR agent automatically stops event capturing from the device, and then even the dashboard does not get any notifications from the agent."
"There are areas for improvement, including the difficulty in getting the right handles on the applied email filters."
"Another area of improvement is CPU utilization. CPU utilization could be improved."
"It's not very mature, and additional costs are involved."
"The product could be improved by offering a single panel for the management of all Bitdefender products. Additionally, there might be a need to simplify the interface in the future."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The resource consumption is high for Bitdefender GravityZone XDR, nearly using one gigabyte of RAM, especially on Windows 10 and 11."
"Sometimes if you do not have the resources in-house, it can be difficult."
"They could always work to make the pricing a bit lower."
"Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured."
"To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an ingestion cost perspective."
"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server."
"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."
"There are challenges with the licensing policies, which are quite complicated."
"The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"I did PoCs on products called Cylance and CrowdStrike. Although, I consider these products and they were also good, when it come to cost and budgetary factors, Traps has been proven to be better than the other two products. It is quite cost-effective and delivers all the entire solution which we require."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."
"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."
"The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"It's not the price of the software itself that makes it expensive. It's because you have to buy a VM; you have to buy additional hardware. All those things make it slightly costlier."
"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."
"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."
"The tool is pretty expensive."
"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."
"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."
"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to cost."
"It is bundled with our enterprise subscription, which makes it easy to go for it. It is available by default, and there is no extra cost for using the standard features."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise55
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. ...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface,...
What needs improvement with Bitdefender GravityZone XDR?
For data correlation, we just haven't worked long enough with it to assess its impact on our overall threat response ...
What is your primary use case for Bitdefender GravityZone XDR?
I am using SentinelOne not for MDR, only for EDR/XDR, because we wanted to use it for MDR, but the threshold for the ...
How is Prisma Cloud vs Azure Security Center for security?
Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening acros...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was that the license cost was the only consideration. Setup an...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an inges...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about SentinelOne, TrendAI, Wazuh and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.