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Cortex XSIAM vs Microsoft Defender for Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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
4.6
Cortex XSIAM enhances incident management and provides significant financial returns by automating detection and response, reducing staffing needs.
Sentiment score
4.4
Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective and efficient, offering incident prevention and resolution without complex hardware setups.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.8
Cortex XSIAM support varies; premium service excels, while non-premium experiences depend on distributor expertise and sometimes face delays.
Sentiment score
6.9
Opinions on Microsoft Defender for Identity support vary, highlighting responsiveness, but issues include delays, contact challenges, and false positives.
With premium support, core Palo Alto technical experts handle issues directly.
Team Lead, Security at seamlessinfotech.com
It is ineffective in terms of responding to basic queries and addressing future requirements.
Associate Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
The Palo Alto support team is fully responsive and helpful.
SOC Analyst at OVELOSEC
Generally, the support is more effective than other providers like Oracle.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
The quality of support is very good, but troubleshooting can take time due to complex setups and the need to provide many logs.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The people I normally use for support are very knowledgeable, especially when they help remote in and get to where I need to go and show me much faster and help me understand what I should be doing.
Technology Coordinator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Cortex XSIAM is scalable for various business sizes with cloud-based integration, but lacks on-premises deployment and mixed reviews.
Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Identity efficiently integrates and scales globally, supporting diverse organizational needs within Microsoft’s ecosystem effectively.
Without proper integration, scaling up with more servers is meaningless.
Associate Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Cortex XSIAM is highly scalable.
SOC Analyst at OVELOSEC
In a Microsoft-centric organization, especially with Azure infrastructure and Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cortex XSIAM is praised for its stability, rapid issue resolution, and efficient performance despite minor post-update challenges.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Defender for Identity is highly reliable, with minimal incidents, seamless operation, and consistent ratings between seven and nine.
The product was easy to install and set up and worked right.
Owner at Xelere
Overall, Cortex XSIAM is stable.
SOC Analyst at OVELOSEC
It works really nice and performs really efficiently after configuration.
IT COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS at Américas BPS
Microsoft Defender for Identity is quite robust and built on Azure hyperscale infrastructure, with a 99% availability.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
We do not see any issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Identity.
Deputy Manager at Servion Global Solutions
Having recently started using it, reliability is affirmed, but manual investigation is often performed to verify if alerts identified by auto-remediation are accurate.
Instrumentation Engineer at Toyo Engineering Corp
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XSIAM needs improved integration, performance, interface, pricing, support, ASM, AI, onboarding, tagging, and identity management enhancements.
Microsoft Defender for Identity users seek improved cloud integration, user-friendly features, better support, and streamlined processes for enhanced threat management.
Obtaining validation for integrations from Palo Alto takes around eight months, which is quite long.
Associate Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Cortex XSIAM needs improvements in terms of data onboarding, parsers, and third-party integration supports.
SOC Analyst at OVELOSEC
Cortex XSIAM is on the expensive side and requires substantial improvement in pricing.
Solutions Architect at ostec
If Microsoft could develop a feature that indicates when impossible travel is caused by VPN connections, it would prevent unnecessary password resets and session disruptions, especially for VIP users in organizations.
CyberSecurity Engineer | Information Security Management at Self Employed
One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
Reducing false positives is something we've been working on with Microsoft.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Cortex XSIAM is viewed as competitively priced but complex, aligning with market expectations despite some regional variations.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective with E5 licenses despite complex pricing and competitive against other security solutions.
The first impression is that XSIAM would be more expensive than others we tried.
Owner at Xelere
The product is very expensive.
Associate Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Cortex XSIAM is pretty expensive, and the licensing process is not very comfortable.
Director at MICROLOGIC NETWORKS PRIVATE LIMITED
If they can reduce the costs, organizations will be happy, and it will compensate for using the Azure environment, which is more expensive on the infrastructure as a service side.
CyberSecurity Engineer | Information Security Management at Self Employed
Ensuring a fair price according to market standards.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
From an organization perspective, using E5 licenses is value for money, especially if Azure and Office 365 are already in use.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XSIAM excels in machine learning threat detection, SOAR features, and advanced automation for efficient security management.
Microsoft Defender for Identity integrates with Azure to offer comprehensive threat detection, identity protection, and advanced real-time security insights.
The advanced visualization capabilities of the product are important for understanding security trends in an organization.
Solutions Architect at ostec
One of the valued aspects of the product is its use of artificial intelligence to detect security vulnerabilities.
Owner at Xelere
The flexibility for creating manual workflows stands out.
Associate Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
We receive an advance report of risky users, allowing us to take preemptive action before an attack causes damage to organization details.
Instrumentation Engineer at Toyo Engineering Corp
The most valuable feature is its hybrid artificial intelligence, which gathers forensic data to track and counteract security threats, much like the CSI series in effect.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
The advanced threat protection is one of the strengths of Microsoft Defender for Identity, as it utilizes user and entity analytics and can detect indicative attacks.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XSIAM
Ranking in Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (13th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (8th)
Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (6th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XSIAM is 5.3%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 12.5%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Identity12.5%
Cortex XSIAM5.3%
Other82.2%
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2666148 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Integration challenges highlight the need for manual workflows
The standard integrations are very limited, and the integrations available are not listed in the marketplace. Obtaining validation for integrations from Palo Alto takes around eight months, which is quite long. The solution would benefit from having more standard playbooks and templates available, as in other partners. Currently, everything must be created from scratch. In terms of incident response automation, it is quite poor due to the lack of integration with all security tools, making manual intervention necessary.
RK
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Protect on-premises and hybrid environments with advanced threat detection and seamless integration
Our Active Directory implementation is a hybrid one. The advanced threat protection is one of the strengths of Microsoft Defender for Identity, as it utilizes user and entity analytics and can detect indicative attacks. It identifies lateral movements, privilege escalations, and alerts on potential attacks. The tool is also used for security posture assessment. The seamless integration with other Microsoft solutions within our Microsoft-centric environment is also a major advantage.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) solutions are best for your needs.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cortex XSIAM?
It is an effective solution in terms of performance and functionalities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cortex XSIAM?
I did not participate in pricing discussions for Cortex XSIAM solutions, so I cannot provide a review regarding prices for this solution.
What needs improvement with Cortex XSIAM?
Cortex XSIAM is on the expensive side and requires substantial improvement in pricing. There are other features that could be improved, including integration with vendors such as CyberArk. I would ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I really would have to sit down to think about how Microsoft Defender for Identity can be improved. I didn't take stock in what needs to be improved because I appreciated having the tools right the...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Identity include Conditional Access, checking risky users, remediating risky users, and user sign-ins. I can easily remediate or determine what the user...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XSIAM vs. Microsoft Defender for Identity and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.