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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs VMware Carbon Black Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.7
Cortex XDR reduces malware risks, cuts costs, and enhances performance with automation and threat integration, outperforming competitors.
Sentiment score
5.2
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint offers strong protection, reducing malware and saving 10% in costs, showing significant value within six months.
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks helps to reduce my total cost of ownership significantly.
Detection and Response Consultant at Inovasys
In Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, most of the remediation is automated and the accuracy is quite good.
Network Security Engineer at Cyberwell Solution
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Cortex XDR's support quality varies; users experience quick responses or delays, with better service in premium plans.
Sentiment score
6.2
VMware Carbon Black's support is knowledgeable yet occasionally slow, with variability in global and local assistance quality.
The technical support from Palo Alto deserves a mark of ten because they reach out within an hour whenever assistance is needed.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
There is no back and forth, and they know what we are asking for and come up with the best resolution for a solution.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
If any of these services are missed, it becomes a problem in terms of support tickets, follow-up, or special configuration that needs to be done in the system.
Chief of IT Architecture at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Regarding the technical support of Broadcom, they are responsive and helpful.
Senior VP, Technology & Leading Technology Office at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cortex XDR offers seamless scalability, easily supporting thousands of endpoints across varied environments with straightforward license updates.
Sentiment score
7.1
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is praised for scalability and ease of deployment, despite some challenges with report generation.
You can onboard 10,000 endpoints in just hours, which demonstrates the excellent scalability of this product.
Assistant Security Architect at Cloudnomics
Activating the newly purchased licenses is instantaneous, allowing installations without adjustments since it's cloud-based.
Junior Security Analyst at ITSEC Asia
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be expanded anytime by purchasing another license without any issues related to scalability.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
The solution's scalability has had a medium impact on the IT environment.
CTO at Microsoft
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Cortex XDR is stable and reliable with rare bugs, occasional update challenges, and minor database-related issues reported.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is generally stable and efficient, with minor integration issues and occasional latency quickly addressed.
Cortex remains fast and responsive, even with increasing data and alerts.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The thresholds we've seen on our firewall boxes at some instances reached 80% to 85%, but even at that level of utilization, we don't observe any latency or any issues reported with respect to accessing the application.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is slow for the stability rating.
CTO at Microsoft
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XDR needs better integration, interface simplification, feature enhancements, reduced false positives, and improved pricing, automation, and support.
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint needs better integration, user interface, system compatibility, pricing, support, and enhanced features for improved client satisfaction.
Improving reporting and dashboard customization, along with the addition of real-time and exportable reports, would help SOC teams greatly.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of DLP policies alongside antivirus policies via a single agent and console, making it more competitive as other OEMs often offer DLP solutions as part of their antivirus products.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
If the per GB data could be provided at a certain level free of cost or at the same cost which the customer is taking for the entire bundle, that would be better.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
I think VMware Carbon Black Endpoint should improve in every area, because currently the NetGen AV, even from Microsoft and even from CrowdStrike, is better than VMware Carbon Black Endpoint.
CTO at Microsoft
 

Setup Cost

Cortex XDR is costly but offers flexible licensing, appealing for enterprises needing advanced security features and robust protection.
VMware Carbon Black's pricing is high and inflexible, with users preferring user-based over endpoint-based licensing options.
The pricing on SentinelOne is far more reasonable and cheaper than Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks.
Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would say it is definitely not a cheap product, considering how mature it is and how scalable all Palo Alto products are together.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
My rating for the pricing of VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is that it is not cheap, but it is also not as inexpensive as I would prefer.
CTO at Microsoft
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XDR offers endpoint security with AI-driven detection, seamless integration, and automated threat handling for improved operational efficiency.
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint offers advanced threat detection, cloud management, machine learning, and centralized control for efficient incident management.
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
It includes machine learning to easily analyze data and detect complex threats across endpoints, networks, or clouds.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
I assess VMware Carbon Black Endpoint's machine learning capabilities in detecting unknown threats as fantastic.
Senior VP, Technology & Leading Technology Office at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint does facilitate endpoint protection and incident response, and it is an EDR.
CTO at Microsoft
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
6th
Ranking in Ransomware Protection
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
30th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
31st
Ranking in Ransomware Protection
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (8th)
 

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 VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is 2.0%, up from 1.6% 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%
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint2.0%
Other94.3%
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.
PM
CTO at Microsoft
Improved incident investigation has supported response while core protection still needs progress
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint does not have easy integration, as there are many complexities with the Ribitava API, which is very deep. I rate this solution overall as a five or six on a scale from one to ten. I have integrated VMware Carbon Black Endpoint with other tools that are helpful. I think this solution should be targeted at small clients, because adoption will grow more with small businesses tomorrow.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise33
 

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. The ability to reverse damage caused by ransomware with minimal interruptions to...
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 that are very scalable, secure, and user-friendly. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto offers ...
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, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
What to choose: an endpoint antivirus, an EDR solution or both?
I can recommend Carbon Black, an award-winning next-gen anti-virus (NGAV) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) security solution. The CB Predictive Security Cloud platform combines multiple hi...
What's the difference between Carbon Black CB Response and Carbon Black CB Defense?
Carbon Black offers two different levels of Endpoint Detection and Response. One is the VM Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint Standard (CB Defense), and the other is the Carbon Black Endpoint Detection an...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Carbon Black CB Defense, Bit9, Confer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Netflix, Progress Residential, Indeed, Hologic, Gentle Giant, Samsung Research America
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. VMware Carbon Black Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
896,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.