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BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity vs Microsoft Defender for Business comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
BlackBerry Cylance Cybersec...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
32nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.7%
Microsoft Defender for Business1.6%
BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity1.5%
Other93.2%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

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.
Sooraj Makkancherrry - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Operations Manager at Philips
Doesn't have daily updates, which is important for healthcare IT
I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we contact support, they tell us to update the latest agent, but we can't do that immediately due to medical device protocols and validation testing. I wish support would try to understand our issues better instead of giving this standard response. The machine learning feature they use often tells us to upgrade the agent or add things to the exclusion list, which isn't unacceptable. It's a very good and new technology as a tool and antivirus. But sometimes, it doesn't work properly with our medical devices and products, quarantining files it shouldn't even after we add them to exclusions. This is tricky for us.
Paritosh Jani - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate VP (Managed Information Technology Services) at Dev Information Tech Pvt Ltd
Has delivered automated threat response and streamlined integration with advanced tools
The best features of Microsoft Defender for Business include it coming as an XDR solution which provides automated investigations, remediations, and endpoint detection and response. Moreover, it can be tightly integrated with vulnerability management or detecting vulnerabilities and pushing them to the SIEM solution. I utilize the advanced threat hunting feature of Microsoft Defender for Business and find it helpful; it's good and improving with every update. Microsoft Defender for Business integrates effectively with the Microsoft ecosystem as with Azure Sentinel, and it has a two-way natural integration. Apart from that, it also integrates with industry SIEM solutions such as Splunk.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its ability to react to cyber data attacks is awesome."
"Cortex XDR alerts us on the dashboard when there's a threat, which allows us to restrict that user and helps secure our infrastructure."
"Palo Alto is constantly adding new features."
"Based on my experience, I would recommend Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks to other people."
"It's a perfect solution. It integrates well into the environment."
"Palo Alto Networks Traps improves our security posture and lowers risk by providing next-gen methods to combat against modern threats on all the major platforms."
"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."
"WildFire AI is the best option for this product."
"Specifically for a Windows domain environment, the product can be customized and pushed via GPO or SCCM without issue.​"
"I've found the AI engine in CylancePROTECT to be particularly effective for technology and in preventing unknown threats."
"Blackberry Protect offers endpoint protection, it's easy to deploy, and it's scalable and stable."
"With Cylance AI and Machine Learning, it's ensuring that all types of malware, PUP (Potential Unwanted Programs) and Memory Protection your endpoint devices are fully protected, even with day zero threats."
"It provides good insight into the programs, applications, or websites that may need attention."
"In most cases, the solution's ability to detect in the MITRE framework, and its ability to be able to detect attacks in any one of seven or eight different areas of the life cycle of an attack is very useful."
"My advice to someone considering this solution is that it's a popular product and you should really go for it."
"This technology is very good, very stable, and we have great trust in it and what it delivers."
"Using Microsoft Defender for Business is beneficial for my company."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its central console."
"Defender is top class in terms of functional security."
"I recommend Microsoft Defender for Business to startup organizations looking for a plug-and-play solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Business is good for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers solid security flexibility and integration with tools like Microsoft Lighthouse and some other software. It takes some of the features of Defender for Endpoint EDR and provides those services for small and medium-sized business environments."
"Microsoft Defender for Business works well with the Microsoft Azure Security ecosystem, including Defender for Endpoint and Office 365 Cloud."
"If you're an Intune user, you can bring in certain capabilities like system-hardening policies, which further enhances the security."
"The most effective features of Microsoft Defender for Business include its threat detection and response capabilities in managing vulnerabilities and ransomware attacks."
 

Cons

"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."
"I have run into some detection issues with Cortex XDR. It needs to be better at detection of internal attacks."
"The connection to the internet has not performed as expected."
"There are some limitations on the Traps agents."
"The setup is quite easy. We had appropriate support from the manager. One thing that was missing was the integration part."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management. It would be useful to look at the client's issue to fix it."
"Currently, if you use Palo Alto endpoint protection as the only solution it's very complicated to remove pre-existing threats."
"When it comes to malware files, it should be a little quick because, at times, it would give a wrong result in the sense of what it might be on malware, even if it still might be a normal one."
"The solution’s technical support could be improved."
"Technical support is bad. I am not happy with the level of support they offer."
"It just doesn't make you feel like you're getting covered or have the best protection, which you should have."
"I would say one thing that they might need to bring in is protection for mobile devices."
"CylancePROTECT's dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"While you are working, you are finding these things that were supposed to be waived have come back to being blocked. That's frustrating."
"The company that sells us the licenses sometimes doesn't know how to do certain things."
"If they can add more features on top of their Persona feature that would be ideal."
"If I need logs and don't have local storage bundled with Defender, I need to add workspace and log analytics, which is costly for storing logs of 2 GB, 5 GB, 10 GB."
"Technical support could be faster to respond."
"The solution's AI is notorious for false positives, and the time you have to spend training it is ridiculous."
"Microsoft should provide batch management solutions with the application, integrating pass management with roles."
"The areas where Microsoft Defender for Business could improve include the support, installation process, and wiki. I should be able to find solutions to issues quickly without having to delve too deep."
"The biggest one is that Defender needs to be more proactive to the emerging threats. There can be tighter integration with email, especially how it integrates with our email system, which is the Microsoft Outlook suite. There should be the ability to react a lot quicker to emerging threats because sometimes, it takes a few days before some of these new threats are fully identified, and we need that to be a few hours."
"Defender's reporting is rather scattered, and its URL filtering mechanism doesn't really work."
"The technical support from Microsoft is very poor. I would rate it a one, as their technical staff are very junior and take a long time to respond to simple questions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"I don't recall what the cost was, but it wasn't really that expensive."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"Review closely how many endpoints you actually need before buying into a pricing level. Deal and deal with the VAR of your choice."
"We would just add more if there are new users, but right now you just need one license for per user."
"My company is on a yearly CylancePROTECT subscription. Price-wise, the solution is slightly expensive, so I'd rate it as eight out of ten."
"This cost of the license is approximately $5 USD monthly per user."
"The license price for this solution could be better. It's on the expensive side."
"The price is reasonable for us at the moment. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten."
"​Shop around for sure and be assured the price you pay will be close to other solutions available, but even at a slight mark-up from the other solutions, you are getting real endpoint protection versus nothing more than a cheap security blanket that might keep you warm at night."
"The monthly fee is $55 USD per user."
"The tool is cheap, while some other solutions are more expensive. I remember the tool cost about five euros for a workstation or for a user on a monthly basis."
"The tool's cost has been a little high, but I do not think it was terrible."
"It has to get more competitive because we are starting to see some of the competitors providing better pricing, and some of it, of course, is to gain market share. The Defender product pricing is probably a little higher than the competitors."
"Defender for Business is included by default with an Office 365 premium subscription."
"Since we're a nonprofit, we get pretty good discounts on the tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blackberry Protect?
The price is reasonable for us at the moment. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with Blackberry Protect?
I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we conta...
What is your primary use case for Blackberry Protect?
I am using CylancePROTECT as an active learning algorithm. We installed it on almost 20,000 servers and virtual machi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?
Our thoughts on the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Business are that we wish it could be better. If the pricing w...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?
I see room for improvement in Microsoft Defender for Business, particularly regarding the consolidation of all securi...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Blackberry Protect
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Panasonic, Noble Energy, Apria Healthcare Group Inc., Charles River Laboratories, Rovi Corporation, Toyota, Kiewit
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity vs. Microsoft Defender for Business and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.