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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Malwarebytes Teams comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 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...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Malwarebytes Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Malwarebytes Teams 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 Networks3.9%
Malwarebytes Teams1.6%
Other94.5%
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.
reviewer2594097 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at a wholesaler/distributor with 11-50 employees
Exceptional malware protection with regular updates and behavior-based detection
There are no built-in backups or integrated backup options, which could be an opportunity. The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it. Other customers have mentioned issues with false positives. It lacks enterprise-level management and more enterprise functionality. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are much more enterprise-grade solutions. Malwarebytes has limited integration with cybersecurity tools and lacks enterprise integrations because it is not an enterprise product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Once you become familiar with it, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a more powerful tool and I would say that I prefer it over MDE because it is a stronger tool for me."
"It's a nice product that's stable and scalable."
"Stability is a primary factor, and then there's the ease of distribution and policy management; Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very easy to work with, and we're quite happy with them."
"The most valuable aspect of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks for me is its integration with AI detection, where we get to know the behavioral detection based on users, traffic patterns, and different services that we consume."
"Cortex is a very good total solution on the endpoints."
"The integrations are out-of-the-box, as are the playbooks."
"Based on my experience with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, I highly recommend it due to its quick response to zero-day attacks and low utilization from end-user devices."
"I've found the solution to be highly scalable for enterprises."
"The protection is really good with Malwarebytes. It's also user friendly and quite easy to set up."
"The product provides notifications for suspicious events. We have several public access points. The product helps to prevent unauthorized entry. Its most valuable features are pre-installation procedures and a cloud console. The console's interface is simple and can be viewed easily to take action. It covers everything in terms of security threats."
"Provides successful ransomware shut down operations."
"So far, the solution has done a good job of protecting us from malicious items, such as ransomware, among other things."
"The most valuable feature is that it stops malware, which is important."
"The product keeps our company safe."
"The technical support services are good."
"I never have to look at it or do anything with it, and then my system just stays clean."
 

Cons

"They are charging for Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) services, so 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 by Palo Alto Networks could improve by adding a sandbox feature to better compete with their competitors which have it."
"It tends to do 99.9% of things. The only thing I'd like is single sign-on authentication into their cloud platform so that my users can be properly authenticated against it."
"The solution can never really be an on-premises solution based simply on the way it is set up. It needs metadata to run and improve. Having an on-premises solution would cut it off from making improvements."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"I feel that it should not be a licensed activity because a feature should allow us to see applications running on end devices."
"Dashboards do not allow everyone to see what's happening."
"The product's pricing could be better."
"If they want to compete with bigger players, they should consider adding items like threat detection and website warnings."
"It is one of the worst products which I have ever used."
"It would be better if updates could be downloaded, and deployed, on-premises to avoid low bandwidth causing issues."
"Malwarebytes should improve its mobile compatibility."
"We have noticed that when the solution is doing the scanning, all the scanning activities make the device heavier. It slows down your machine."
"The interface could be improved. Currently, you need to really dig around to find the elements you need."
"The product update capability needs to be improved."
"I would like to see a little more detail in the log. So, when an event occurs, I'd like to know not just when it happened and on what device, but what activity was taking place on the machine at the time so that we can drill down. If we get a false positive, we have to do a lot of research and go back and forth with our end-users to know why it was a false positive. So, having a little more detail around detections and events would probably be my most asked feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"Traps pays for itself within the first 16 months of a three-year subscription. This is attributed to OPEX savings, as security teams spent less time trying to identify and isolate malware for analysis as a result of a reduction in malware incidents, false positives, and breach avoidance."
"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"Yearly, it is around $50 per client."
"The licensing is per seat, with clients being a little less expensive than servers. If we need more licenses, we can accomplish that within a day. As Malwarebytes adds new features to their product, such as DNS filtering and a patching module, they want to charge us more even though we're a premium user, which isn't ideal."
"Its cost is around $60 a machine. The cost of the total solution for 250 people is about $8,500 a year. If we add EDR to it, it will bring that cost up to about $15,000. The cost for Carbon Black is about $25,000, which is $10,000 more, but you get all AI functions with it."
"The cost may be something in the ballpark of $20-25 a year per computer."
"Malwarebytes is a cost-effective product."
"The platform pricing is competitive with other antivirus products."
"It is really expensive. We've got between 30 and 40 licenses every year, and for the number of licenses that we have, we're finding that Malwarebytes on average costs between $900 and $1,000 more per year than comparable options. We're paying about $3,300 per year for these licenses. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Malwarebytes?
I really hate the automatic rebilling without officially confirming it with me. It's an annoyance and they should at least confirm with me, like a month before they bill me.
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes?
It takes up too much space when it's trying to run in the background.
What is your primary use case for Malwarebytes?
My primary use case is that it's protecting me against malware.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Knutson Construction
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Malwarebytes Teams and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.