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CylanceOPTICS vs Microsoft Defender XDR comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
1.7
Users saw positive ROI from CylanceOPTICS with improved threat detection, cost savings, faster responses, and a user-friendly interface.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Defender XDR delivers substantial ROI by streamlining operations, reducing costs, and enhancing security with consolidated functionalities.
We can quarantine and isolate a device within minutes.
Microsoft Defender XDR has saved me at least 50% of my time.
Ever since we turned on the M5 feature set back in June, we have seen a reduced number of potentially malicious clicks and faster alerting when incidents occur.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.8
CylanceOPTICS' customer service is mixed, with effective higher-tier support but lacking initial assistance and geographical challenges.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Defender XDR support is responsive but varies; premium users receive faster resolutions than smaller organizations or basic plans.
You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.
It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.
Once issues are escalated to the second or third layer, the support is much better.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.3
CylanceOPTICS is praised for scalability but faces mixed reviews, especially with larger enterprises and virtual machine demands.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender XDR offers scalable adaptability for large enterprises, accommodating diverse needs by leveraging flexible cloud infrastructure and licensing.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
Microsoft Defender XDR scales pretty well.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
9.4
CylanceOPTICS is praised for its stability, reliability, and compatibility, excelling over McAfee despite minor issues with SentinelOne.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender XDR is highly reliable but has occasional performance issues on macOS/Linux and alert misclassifications.
The service has remained consistently online, with any issues isolated to specific components, suggesting a well-designed and modular architecture.
The services within our ecosystem have been reliable, meeting their SLAs.
It provides high-fidelity signals.
 

Room For Improvement

CylanceOPTICS needs enhancements in threat automation, detection, and management, facing issues with false positives and scalability.
Microsoft Defender XDR requires improved UI, integration, clarity, support, AI, and threat detection for better user experience.
The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.
Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.
Some inconsistencies exist between blades, which could be improved for a more seamless user and UI experience.
 

Setup Cost

CylanceOPTICS pricing is competitive and affordable, with annual costs under $100 per client, often bundled with services.
Microsoft Defender XDR pricing varies; it's cost-effective with Microsoft 365, but potentially expensive standalone for smaller businesses.
There are certainly savings when using Microsoft Defender XDR, which can range from 30%, 40%, and even up to 50%.
I would rate the pricing as eight out of ten, indicating it is a reasonable cost for the product.
Microsoft purposefully obfuscates this through marketing ploys to hide costs.
 

Valuable Features

CylanceOPTICS provides AI-driven threat detection with auto-containment, script control, and behavior analytics, offering trusted, real-time security solutions.
Microsoft Defender XDR offers seamless integration, advanced threat management, and automation, enhancing security efficiency while reducing costs and tool complexity.
With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.
This allows us to secure our systems in advance and proactively improve security, rather than waiting for incidents to occur.
Once we have it on the security dashboard, we can see a real-time storyline.
 

Categories and Ranking

CylanceOPTICS
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
40th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of CylanceOPTICS is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 2.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Subhadip Pakrashi - PeerSpot reviewer
Performance is competitive while setup support needs improvement
From a technical perspective, the product has no issues. The main consideration is cost, as customers are unwilling to pay high amounts for security solutions. I purchase the product from CrowdStrike and sell it to customers. CylanceOPTICS is now owned by North Arctic, after being acquired from BlackBerry, who had previously acquired it from Cylance. When customers approached us wanting an EDR product with technical capabilities, we presented two choices: CrowdStrike and CylanceOPTICS. While both products were good, CylanceOPTICS was chosen based on price-performance ratio. The solution serves primarily data center businesses and other companies. The product's features, reporting, and alert generation were well-received by customers. Though CrowdStrike has excellent features, CylanceOPTICS proved more cost-effective. The interface is somewhat complex, but this is appropriate for a security product. A technical team is essential for successful implementation. I rate this solution 8 out of 10.
Gabor Nyerd - PeerSpot reviewer
Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot
We found that sometimes integrations work, but testing them can take some time. Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected. We have a configuration in place that needs to be synchronized with another server. However, the servers are four hours apart, so this can cause delays. In general, I believe that the time it takes to configure and test a service should be shorter. Sometimes, it can take a couple of hours to test a single configuration setting. Other times, it is only ten or fifteen minutes, which is normal. However, sometimes, even immediate actions can be triggered by configuration changes, and some settings can take up to eight hours to complete. I believe that this time can be improved. Microsoft is making a lot of improvements to its services in a short period of time. This is a good thing, as it means that the services are constantly being updated and improved. However, it can be challenging for customers to keep up with the changes. For example, a customer may read about an update, understand it, and share it with their colleagues and boss. However, it may take days or weeks to test the update and get the necessary approvals. This can be especially challenging for large customers with many users or machines. In some cases, Microsoft may change a service before the customer has had a chance to implement the previous update. This can be frustrating for customers, as it means that they have to constantly learn new things and adjust their workflows. On the one hand, it is important for Microsoft to keep updating and improving its services. This helps to ensure that the services are meeting the customers' needs and that they are staying ahead of the competition. Microsoft should also be mindful of the challenges that these changes can create for customers. One way to address this challenge is to provide customers with more time to implement changes. Microsoft could also provide more information about upcoming changes so that customers can plan ahead. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to strike a balance between keeping its services up-to-date and providing customers with a smooth transition to new features.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Blackberry Optics?
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. I would give it a close ten as possible because, like SentinelOne, I've seen incompatibility. Whereas Cylance, I've seen none.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blackberry Optics?
CylanceOPTICS is probably priced equal to other EDRs in the market. Price-wise, considering what it has to offer, you could probably get a better product.
What needs improvement with Blackberry Optics?
I am not aware of the exact pricing and list prices currently. We received special pricing on multiple occasions.
What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
The pricing for Microsoft Sentinel operates on a pay-as-you-go model based on data ingestion. I recall that Defender XDR pricing is based on the number of endpoints.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
For Microsoft Defender XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ), there is currently no ability to reset passwords for on-premises accounts, which is a key challenge. Incident managem...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cerdant, Washoe County School District
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about CylanceOPTICS vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.