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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.3
Cortex XDR enhances security, reduces costs, boosts threat identification, compliance, and user confidence, offering cost-effective data protection.
Sentiment score
7.3
CrowdStrike Falcon improves productivity, reduces costs, minimizes downtime, enhances security, and delivers high user satisfaction with effective threat management.
Sentiment score
6.0
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint delivers strong ROI with enhanced security, reducing costs and malware incidents within six months.
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
I have seen a return on investment with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, as this product is offered at a minimal cost, and we can find a good ROI from it.
CrowdStrike Falcon saves time and offers good value for money, especially for enterprise companies, because it can stop breaches.
It's very easy to deploy without many IT admins, saving time.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Cortex XDR support is responsive and knowledgeable, despite occasional delays and regional language barriers affecting resolution times.
Sentiment score
7.1
CrowdStrike Falcon's customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some suggest improvements in speed and communication.
Sentiment score
6.3
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint support is knowledgeable but inconsistent, with varied satisfaction and room for improvement in response times.
Every vendor has similar support; it depends on how the case is handled and raised.
Their support is efficient and responsive whenever I raise a ticket through my portal.
They did well with handling high-risk threats.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as a 10 because they resolve many issues for us.
The CrowdStrike team is very efficient; I would rate them ten out of ten.
They could improve by initiating calls for high-priority cases instead of just opening tickets.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cortex XDR is praised for smooth scalability, managing diverse endpoints, and effective expansion in various organizational sizes.
Sentiment score
7.9
CrowdStrike Falcon is praised for its scalable, cloud-based infrastructure, allowing easy deployment and expansion for diverse business sizes.
Sentiment score
7.3
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is highly scalable, supporting diverse environments efficiently, despite some data extraction and management complexities.
It has adequate coverage and is easy to deploy.
In terms of scalability, I find CrowdStrike to be stable, and I have not encountered any limitations with it.
There's no scalability limitation from CrowdStrike itself, as it just requires agent deployment.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Cortex XDR is stable, with resolved bugs and ongoing improvements, earning high stability ratings from users.
Sentiment score
8.1
CrowdStrike Falcon is stable and reliable, though occasionally faces missed detections and minor disruptions during upgrades.
Sentiment score
7.5
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint offers reliable security, but some users experience stability issues and update-related challenges for resource allocation.
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
For the last 11 months, we haven't faced any outage issues, so it is a stable product.
All the situations and issues were controlled in a good way by Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks.
I have never seen instability in the CrowdStrike tool.
We are following N-1 versions across our environment, which is stable.
The biggest issue occurred when every computer worldwide experienced a blue screen.
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XDR struggles with compatibility, high memory usage, difficult management, limited features, and needs better integration, UI, and pricing.
CrowdStrike Falcon requires enhancements in reporting, integration, UI navigation, feature set, pricing, support, and compatibility with older OS.
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint needs better integration, UI, mobile support, pricing, responsiveness, threat detection, and stability improvements.
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.
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.
Cortex XDR could improve its sales support team, including better commission structures and referral programs.
Simplifying the querying process, such as using double quote queries or directly obtaining logs based on IP addresses or usernames, would be beneficial.
Another concern is CrowdStrike's GUI. It changes annually, making it hard to work and find options.
Threat prevention should be their first priority.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Cortex XDR expensive, but competitive, with flexible licensing; costs vary by usage, features, and setup.
CrowdStrike Falcon is pricey but valued for security, with per-device pricing and discounts possible for enterprises; free trial available.
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is seen as pricey, varying by deployment size, with mixed views on its value and flexibility.
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
Compared to competitors such as CrowdStrike and Sophos, the pricing of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is similar to CrowdStrike but more expensive than Sophos.
It is expensive compared to SentinelOne, but as the market leader, it is worth it.
The licensing cost and setup costs are affordable.
The solution is a bit expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XDR offers robust endpoint security with advanced threat detection, ease of use, seamless integration, and real-time monitoring capabilities.
CrowdStrike Falcon provides lightweight, AI-driven security with real-time response, easy integration, scalability, and minimal false positives.
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint excels in threat detection, management, and integration, providing scalable and efficient security with minimal resource use.
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
If a user doesn't click any link within 30 days and on the 31st day clicks a new link, Cortex XDR immediately alerts us that this user has clicked on an uncommon link or their behavior is uncommon.
I can investigate by accessing the customer's host based on the RTR environment and utilize host search to know details for the past seven days, including logins, processes, file installations, malicious processes, and network connections.
The real-time analytics aspect of CrowdStrike performs well because we get all logs in real-time, with no delay, allowing us to take action immediately.
Being an EDR solution, it helps us identify attacks in real-time.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon is 7.9%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is 1.8%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CrowdStrike Falcon7.9%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.7%
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint1.8%
Other86.6%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

HectorRios - PeerSpot reviewer
Has detected high-risk threats effectively and provides strong behavioral protection
They did well with handling high-risk threats. I would rate Palo Alto support an eight or nine. I would give them an eight because in the majority of cases, we talk with local partners, and only in case of an emergency or a difficult issue, we jump to Palo Alto support. When we had that experience with Palo Alto support, it was nice service, but it was really difficult to get it. To jump from the partner to Palo Alto directly was challenging. I understand that it's part of the service, as the local partner just jumps up to Palo Alto support in case they need it. In some cases, when we faced an important issue, it was preferred to jump directly to Palo Alto to save time.
Waleed Omar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides effective real-time threat detection with potential for cost optimization
Some features such as device control, firewall management, and file analysis are standalone products that we need to purchase separately. If these features came out of the box within the product, it would be much more beneficial for us. Other providers such as SentinelOne include these features in their base product. We attended a CrowdStrike Falcon event where they discussed some shallow AI features, but we cannot see these in our panel yet. We work with different solutions such as Darktrace and SocRadar, where AI features are automatically displayed in our dashboards after release. However, for CrowdStrike Falcon, we cannot see these features.
Nikunj Kamboj - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates well with our existing SIEM tool and helps in identifying suspicious activities
The solution's integration with our existing security infrastructure is good. Whenever we have any alert in VMware Carbon Black Endpoint, we can easily that alert in our SIEM tool and check logs from the SIEM tool itself. VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is just a secondary security tool for us, and we are just monitoring the alerts from it. The solution's behavioral analytics feature helps in identifying suspicious activities pretty well. Whenever we have even a small thing, we get an alert. The solution is deployed on the cloud in our organization. Performance-wise, the solution is doing great in terms of connecting to the host directly. Performing a malware scan usually takes a lot of time, more than 24 hours. A malware scan is something that we do only on Carbon Black for the old endpoint devices and servers. It used to take sometimes three days to perform. I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise61
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise30
 

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,...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing u...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never pu...
Is Crowdstrike Falcon better than Trend Micro Deep Security?
I like that Crowdstrike allows me to easily correlate data between my firewalls. What’s most useful for my needs is t...
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) s...
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 Endpoin...
What do you like most about Carbon Black CB Defense?
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is a highly stable solution.
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
CrowdStrike Falcon, CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike Identity Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Surface
Carbon Black CB Defense, Bit9, Confer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
Netflix, Progress Residential, Indeed, Hologic, Gentle Giant, Samsung Research America
Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Microsoft, SentinelOne and others in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP). Updated: September 2025.
870,623 professionals have used our research since 2012.