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ConnectWise SIEM vs Microsoft Defender XDR comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
ConnectWise SIEM
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
53rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (44th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (21st), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (23rd)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ConnectWise SIEM is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 2.0%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.7%
Microsoft Defender XDR2.0%
ConnectWise SIEM0.8%
Other93.5%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

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.
reviewer2711757 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Software Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Automated alerting and reporting excel while cost and feature limitations remain
I find automation to be one of the best and most valuable features of the product. Machine learning is incorporated into the solution, though AI is a broader term that I wouldn't apply here. I haven't personally explored AI yet, but I will investigate it. Machine learning functions more as automation in my experience, as there's no training involved yet. I want to conduct R&D on another project with Wazuh to determine how to capture usage, for example, tracking user logins and time spent. This is where I need to implement machine learning. Additionally, the extraction of GeoIP adds complexity. The solution is effectively reducing incident response times in operations.
reviewer2812758 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infosec at a government with 10,001+ employees
Integrated defenses have unified threat hunting, phishing simulations, and identity investigations
I appreciate Microsoft Defender XDR's MDE, Microsoft Defender tool, which has Attack Simulator. Instead of doing a phishing campaign and getting a separate tool, Microsoft Defender XDR does it all. These features of Microsoft Defender XDR have helped us conduct a phishing campaign quarterly, which has been beneficial. I also appreciate the fact that it has Defender for Office integrated, Defender for Identity, and everything integrated together. I would describe the process of using Microsoft Defender XDR to prioritize incidents in my security operations as quite decent. I appreciate the automatic alerting system where any incidents or alerts we receive come directly to our email. From there, we can open the email, go directly to Microsoft Defender XDR, and start our investigations and remediations. I perceive the integration of security and identity access management in Microsoft Defender XDR as affecting my identity protection strategies very well because it is well integrated with Purview, integrated well with Entra ID, and integrated well with Exchange. I especially appreciate MDO, the Office product. If anything happens and I want to conduct an investigation, it takes me directly to Exchange, where I can also investigate any emails or phishing incidents. Instead of going to different portals, everything can be done from Microsoft Defender XDR. If necessary for further investigation, Microsoft Defender XDR then directs me to that environment. I would assess the integration of AI in guiding security actions within Microsoft Defender XDR as quite positive. Recently, Security Copilot went big, and it is beneficial that I can use that, especially to write KQL. I can do threat hunting features and intelligence all within using Microsoft's Security Copilot. It also has a nice AI feature for threat hunting. I know that all the Defender logs go to Sentinel, and I can pull it up from Microsoft Defender XDR or from Sentinel. The fact that I can actually do all that within Microsoft Defender XDR is a nice feature. In the top module, I can do threat lookups, and I can actually type KQLs in Microsoft Defender XDR and look up incidents. Predictive shielding has had a nice impact on my proactive security measures. It is beneficial that it has, similar to Entra ID, a secure score. For me to improve the product, the secure score helps me out. If I rate it from highest to lowest, I can see what things I can improve. Secure score helps me see what areas I can improve in Microsoft Defender XDR to increase my score and bring it to 80 or more. Knowing Microsoft Defender XDR from using it since 2019, before COVID days, I know that they have improved significantly. It is much more user-friendly and has a very nice vulnerability feature that I find handy and useful. The fact that this feature integrates into Intune is also very decent.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is mostly automated, and we do not have to make decisions, because all the decisions are made by the product itself and we are not required to create any custom policies since the policies that are created are well defined in the product itself."
"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 tool's use cases are relevant to security."
"On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks a nine."
"My advice for anybody who is considering Cortex XDR is that it is a complete solution, and has very good features."
"The information the dashboard provides is very clear."
"Palo Alto is the core of the security infrastructure in the environment."
"They have a new GUI which is just fantastic."
"We have found the solution has great functionality and it is easy to use."
"The integration capabilities of ConnectWise SIEM are off the shelf, making it easy to buy and use; you just unpack it and use it."
"One valuable feature of ConnectWise Fortify is the ability to add other teams and receive notifications when customers make changes or remove multi-factor authentication in Microsoft or SAP environments."
"Scanning, vulnerability reporting, and the dashboard are the most valuable features."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a stable solution."
"I have found the ability to delete unwanted threats beneficial."
"The attack simulation is excellent; initially, this feature wasn't very robust, but Microsoft improved what we could achieve with it. We can now customize our practice phishing emails and include our company logo, for example. Attack simulation also helps integrate with third-party solutions where applicable and provides an overview of our security architecture through testing. The summary includes areas for improvement in our protection and what steps we need to take to get there."
"I like 365 Defender's advanced threat hunting. The dashboard is user-friendly with templates for site policies, etc. The most important use case is evaluating the risk links and applications."
"Microsoft Sentinel enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem, investigate threats, and respond from one place, which has reduced our time to detection and time to response by about 20 percent."
"The common and advanced security policies for threat hunting and blocking attacks are valuable."
"What I appreciate most about Microsoft Defender XDR is the ability to drill down to the process level, the visibility of processes, and the file-level details of what processes are accessing, including the IP addresses for outbound connections."
 

Cons

"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."
"We had a problem with getting our older endpoints up to date, but their newest updates have been really good. I've been pleased with it in terms of what our needs are. It's doing what we want it to do."
"The configuration could be simplified. I would like to see better protection, specifically to protect email applications."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve its user interface, which is more complicated compared to competitors such as SentinelOne."
"The only issues that we have are, one the cost, two the dashboard is not very intuitive, even though you can drill down within the dashboard, we usually have to gather information from other sources to determine locations and if its a false positive."
"We would also like to have advanced tech protection and email scanning."
"For Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, if I had to point out improvements, I would say the UI is still somewhat difficult for beginners."
"In reporting they should have a customizable dashboard due to the fact that C-level people don't like reporting to the IT department. They prefer to have a real-time dashboard. That kind of dashboard needs to have various customizations."
"ConnectWise SIEM is primarily focused on notifications and is limited in that aspect, while Wazuh can automate the elimination process."
"The manage portion of the solution is complicated and should be simplified by having different versions to meet the needs of different size companies."
"ConnectWise Fortify could work on covering more areas, like phishing messages, which have become more complicated to detect."
"The technical support from Microsoft Defender XDR has been disappointingly slow, to the point that I am considering not renewing my unified support contract."
"The cost can be high if you want to build custom license packages. Another area for improvement is the policies. In Azure, we need to implement policies in JSON format, but in 365 Defender 365, it would be helpful to use a different format so we can customize the platform."
"When we do investigations, it would be better if Microsoft could populate the host dashboard more. When we open any host for investigation, we want the entire timeline of what is happening on the host, including all the users logging in, their hardware, Windows version, etc."
"The price could be better. It'll also help if they can continuously update and upgrade the solution. Every day there's a new virus uploaded into the network, and we have to keep updating it to identify all these things."
"Stability could be improved by avoiding frequent changes to the interface."
"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."
"Defender's AI for identifying suspicious activity could be improved. Also, I do a lot of home updates. Maybe there is a way to set it up faster. For example, let's say that I want to automatically update seven computers, servers, etc. I wouldn't do it to a user, but maybe the server. I don't mind if the server restarts automatically."
"The initial time spent setting up and configuring Defender XDR is a bit longer than the other solutions. If everything were on one portal, the platforms for managing policies or alerts would be simpler. We must automate and manage policies on Intune rather than the same portal."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"I don't recall what the cost was, but it wasn't really that expensive."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"The cost of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is $55 to $90 USD per endpoint per month."
"I am using the Community edition."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"The solution is expensive."
"They have moved from a licensing model to pay-per-use... The question is: What happens if, for any reason, there's not enough budget to accept this model? That could be a great problem."
"Purchasing Microsoft Defender XDR as part of a Microsoft 365 bundle can be cost-effective, but acquiring it as a standalone product may be more expensive."
"It has consistently offered highly appealing academic pricing, with distinct rates for higher education and general educational purposes."
"Licensing is somewhat confusing, particularly when presenting our pitch decks to stakeholders and leveraging key features in premium SKUs, but we managed with some assistance from Microsoft."
"We have a lot of problems in Latin America regarding the price of Microsoft 365 Defender, because the relationship between dollars and the money of the different countries, it's is a lot. Many customers that have small businesses say that they would like the solution but it is too expensive. However, large companies do not find the cost an issue."
"We've managed to navigate it effectively through our enterprise agreement, and Microsoft's academic discounts have proven to be quite generous."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is priced high."
"365 Defender can get expensive because you pay per gigabyte of data ingested. On the other hand, much of the data available in the other Microsoft security solutions are made available relatively cheaply—sometimes at cost or for free. Integrating only a limited set of third-party solutions with Sentinel would be cost-effective. It's much more affordable if companies only have Microsoft stuff."
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Top Industries

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

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 Business46
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise41
 

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 ConnectWise Fortify?
I haven't utilized the advanced threat intelligence capabilities with ConnectWise SIEM. Advanced threat intelligence ...
What is your primary use case for ConnectWise Fortify?
I do not have experience with ConnectWise SIEM for RMM, as I mostly work on Wazuh, and I have a team that handles Con...
What advice do you have for others considering ConnectWise Fortify?
The review can be made anonymous if just my name and not the company name is used. I would assess the real-time visib...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender XDR is that we are on an E5 license,...
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
From my perspective, Microsoft Defender XDR can be improved with better visibility in certain areas where I can trigg...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft 365 Defender?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender XDR are telemetry, advanced hunting, and the ability to perform host isolati...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
ConnectWise Security Management, ConnectWise Fortify, Continuum Fortify, ConnectWise SIEM, ConnectWise SASE
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Techvera, Syrex, Clark Integrated Technologies
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about ConnectWise SIEM vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.