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CrowdStrike Falcon vs VirusTotal comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 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...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
CrowdStrike Falcon
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
174
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (1st)
VirusTotal
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (5th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CrowdStrike Falcon5.6%
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.5%
SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint4.5%
Other83.4%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
Anti-Malware Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VirusTotal3.1%
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.0%
SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint3.2%
Other87.7%
Anti-Malware Tools
 

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.
JW
Senior Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized endpoint protection has strengthened compliance and accelerated incident response
There are a number of areas that I only touch a handful of times, but when I get in there, I realize why I don't do that. The main area would be within the support area. The support bot is not really as smart as you would expect it, especially in this day and age of LLM and other capabilities that I know CrowdStrike Falcon is already capable of doing. Additionally, I would appreciate a little bit more easy to read insights of some of the dashboards or maybe manipulation of the dashboards. It is still a little cumbersome to build custom dashboards and it's not as intuitive as you would think. Documentation is abysmal and needs to be improved dramatically. I know that there's a big effort to do this, however, even the new effort is honestly worse than it was before. Those are definitely major areas of improvement, just more in the usability of the features.
Hanish Dhamecha - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Analyst L2 at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Improves security alerts and analysis with comprehensive insights
I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy. VirusTotal should add more details like those from competitors such as URL Void or Symantec URL Checker, which show the category of websites. The addition of a file selection option to analyze files would also enhance the service.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is the low consumption of system resources. The solution uses a lot of AI and machine learning."
"It detected stuff that other things wouldn't detect."
"The biggest positive impact I see from Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a significant reduction in the number of people required to manage it."
"The scalability of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very good."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"The solution allows us to gain remote access without the user's knowledge and take the necessary actions on the device."
"Palo Alto is one of the tech vendors that always provides top-of-the-line products."
"We think that this product will help us grow, as it meets our needs currently and we can grow with it over time."
"The managed services are distinguished, responsive, dynamic, flexible, and assertive when taking action."
"The best benefit of CrowdStrike Falcon is 99% MITRE coverage."
"The CS falcon agent is a lightweight agent compared with other agents of EDR products."
"At this point what is most valuable is the interface, which is easy to navigate."
"We feel we are using a product that is at the top of the industry."
"The platform is very scalable."
"Since we deployed CrowdStrike, the network has become much calmer, and we now understand the sources of infections, which helps us prevent them from spreading."
"The ability to remote into other devices for investigation and the way it presents a graphical representation of the detection, like the parent-child process, are valuable features."
"It allows us to see if there have been previous reports on certain indicators of compromise, providing insights from other security professionals."
"VirusTotal provides 95% to 98% accurate information."
"It is quite simple for anyone if they just want to check some suspicious URLs."
"It provides detailed insights into possible malicious behavior, dropped files, and TCP connections."
"The product is easy to use with coding, such as Python or Java, via its API."
"With VirusTotal, I can check for any hash, malware, file, domain, IP URL, or malicious URL, and Kaspersky stays clean."
"The most valuable feature is the worldwide malware information database."
"The feature I like the most is the ability to see the MD5 or SHA-256 signature of the file, and also the composition of the file according to its segments."
 

Cons

"I feel that it should not be a licensed activity because a feature should allow us to see applications running on end devices."
"To jump from the partner to Palo Alto directly was challenging."
"I would rate it an 8 rather than a 10 mainly because there is still room to improve the user experience around complex investigations, including alert tuning and third-party integration."
"They have the worst support, as a company, that I have ever worked with, as they are difficult to get a hold of and keep on the phone. They don't know what they are talking about when you get them on the phone. They don't like to respond to messages when you send them to them. They like to "research problems" for weeks on end, then pass you off to somebody else."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a very good product, but financially, it is very expensive, so the company should look into that area."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"The encryption is not up to the mark."
"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around. In the hotel industry, we use a different type of data versus Oracle and SQL. By default, there are some policies which stop us from running properly. Because of this, the support level is also not that strong. We have to wait to get a results."
"CrowdStrike has been a good partner, but there are times when we need to escalate support faster."
"The support for different OS versions needs improvement because sometimes due to business conditions, updating our OS is impossible."
"The solution could improve by providing more types of reports because it's in the detection span you cannot re-export anything. If it could be exported to a CSV file directly there it would help a lot. I currently need to do this by API to get what I need."
"The malware analysis could be improved, as that's what we use the solution for the most and that change would make it a better EDR tool."
"Forensic controls have room for improvement."
"The technical support team often just replies to an issue with a link to an article rather than actually calling back and talking to someone and making sure the problem is solved. To me, that's kind of weak."
"Crowdstrike Falcon XDR can improve the integration. There are some locks on the cloud to on-premise integrations."
"It would be nice if they did have some sort of Active Directory tie-in, whether that be Azure or on-prem."
"VirusTotal has predefined reports, but there is a lot of manual effort involved."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in making some of the most useful features more accessible in the non-paid version."
"VirusTotal is hard to understand because you need to know Google Docs to create queries, and it doesn't have documentation for that."
"The platform could improve in the areas of endpoints and networks."
"I would like to see an improved user interface and some automation."
"VirusTotal needs better advertisement and promotion, especially in the Middle East, since it is not yet widely recognized or popular in that region."
"I would like to see improved correlation with other threat intelligence sources, not just reliant on its own database, to enhance the database of threat intelligence that VirusTotal offers."
"There should be room for improvement, particularly in the API side of things."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"In terms of the cost Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very expensive because we are a Mexican company and when you translate dollars to pesos the cost is very high. The solution is very expensive for Mexican companies. I understand that they have international prices, but I do not think it offsets the price enough for many companies in countries, such as Mexico. The amount it is reduced is not a massive percentage."
"The price of the product is not very economical."
"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"Licensing for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR can be costly, especially when it comes to a hundred users. A license is required for each user, and the subscription must be renewed on a yearly basis."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"The pricing is not bad. It's on the higher end of the market, but you get what you pay for."
"We bought a very small number of licenses, then ran it for a year. We bought a 100 licenses for a year, so we didn't actually do a proof of concept. We just bought them. Then, the next year, we bought 10,000 licenses."
"Our company pays approximately US$ 65,000 annually for 900 machines."
"In my opinion, the pricing of CrowdStrike Falcon seems aggressive."
"Years ago, when we bought CrowdStrike, you got everything it had. I was a little concerned when they broke this out into a la carte modules where you can buy EDR, Spotlight, etc., picking and choosing off the menu. I was a little worried that the solution would get watered down. However, I realized in my previous organization when we had the full suite that there were a bunch of features in it that we didn't have time to operationalize. So, I warmed up to it. I get the whole, "Look, you can pick and choose. Okay, everybody buys a steak, but do you want mashed potatoes, or do you want lobster mac and cheese?" So, you can pick the sides that you want, so you can buy the solution that you want and operationalize versus paying a lot of money and getting a bunch of things, but not using 60 percent of the tools in the box."
"CrowdStrike Falcon offers excellent value for the money for our organization, particularly given our lean IT team."
"With respect to pricing, my suggestion to others is to evaluate the environment and purchase what you need."
"The price is high in comparison to similar brands."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"VirusTotal is an expensive solution."
"We are using VirusTotal with free licenses, managing the license limits across three or four accounts, thus incurring no costs."
"The pricing is very economical."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business48
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise56
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business58
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise84
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VirusTotal?
I do not know about the pricing or licensing as our organization services VirusTotal for our clients.
What needs improvement with VirusTotal?
I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy. VirusTotal should add more details like those...
What is your primary use case for VirusTotal?
As I work in an incident response role, my daily task is to mitigate the security alert and perform the analysis part...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike Identity Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Surface, CrowdStrike Falcon Platform
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
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Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Microsoft, SentinelOne and others in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP). Updated: October 2026.
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