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CylancePROTECT vs Intercept X Endpoint (Sophos) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
BlackBerry Cylance Cybersec...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Intercept X Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), ZTNA (10th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th), Ransomware Protection (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.4%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Intercept X Endpoint is 1.5%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.4%
Intercept X Endpoint1.5%
BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity1.3%
Other93.8%
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.
Sooraj Makkancherrry - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Operations Manager at Philips
Doesn't have daily updates, which is important for healthcare IT
I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we contact support, they tell us to update the latest agent, but we can't do that immediately due to medical device protocols and validation testing. I wish support would try to understand our issues better instead of giving this standard response. The machine learning feature they use often tells us to upgrade the agent or add things to the exclusion list, which isn't unacceptable. It's a very good and new technology as a tool and antivirus. But sometimes, it doesn't work properly with our medical devices and products, quarantining files it shouldn't even after we add them to exclusions. This is tricky for us.
AM
IT Head at Dee Development
Has struggled to detect major threats but has offered basic protection over time
Intercept X Endpoint could learn from CrowdStrike in terms of overall performance and filtering because performance is most important, especially these days as Windows is getting buggier and buggier, which puts a huge load on the PC, and even with the most advanced CPUs and everything in place, it still lags in performance in so many places, thanks to Windows' clumsy design of these collaboration suites that make it extremely heavy on PC's resources. The interface of Intercept X Endpoint is quite old-fashioned. The Sophos interfaces, including for Intercept X Endpoint, are quite bad actually; to be very honest, even in UTM boxes, they are not great at all. You can hardly see a very small portion of windows while it's creating the firewall rules, and we have been complaining about this for quite some time, but there hasn't been any improvement on those grounds. Intercept X Endpoint's anti-ransomware capabilities failed us during a bad attack, and just because of our own backup policies, we could restore our normal operations; otherwise, if we had to depend on this solution, we would have been long dead because the infection was so bad, it couldn't even detect the infection. Intercept X Endpoint cannot handle zero-day attacks; in my experience, last year, we had this major issue with a malware attack, and it happened just because of our backup policies that we were able to recover without any support from Sophos, which just told us they would charge us some 1 Crore in rupees. Intercept X Endpoint should improve their implementation; things will never be perfect for the new world. This new world is always facing new kinds of attacks and new ways to compromise the system. They need to learn fast, implement fast, and sometimes redesigning the solution is the solution—not just patchwork. There was a time we used to love Sophos because of its fresh design and innovative thought. In my experience, when technical companies are led by MBA professionals, they lose their shine on the technical part and become more dependent on target sales; it turns into a marketing-centric operation that loses the technical focus completely.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Being a cloud solution it is very flexible in serving internal and external connections and a broad range of devices."
"Palo Alto is the core of the security infrastructure in the environment."
"Cortex covers everything I need. It's a perfect solution. Cortex provides a different level of visibility because it's an extended EDR, allowing you to grab logs from the network and firewalls. Palo Alto invented the concept of the extended EDR or XDR."
"One of the main benefits of the solution is its intelligence to correlate the events into an incident."
"The user interface of the solution is sophisticated and straightforward."
"I generally believe that Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is probably the best in the market right now."
"The tool's use cases are relevant to security."
"The initial setup isn't too bad."
"We are quite security-focused. Blackberry Protect as an endpoint solution for our service really delivers what we are expecting."
"The most valuable features are script blocking and macros within Word documents for stopping unwanted applications from running in the background."
"​Centralized dashboard online which can be used for managing a huge product."
"It does a good job of protecting us."
"You can manage all the threats and everything from a centralized dashboard."
"It actively monitors the behavior and activity of processes and will, without hesitation, terminate at root anything it determines to be suspect."
"The platform's most valuable features are the malware detection capabilities."
"Two or three years ago when the WannaCry virus struck, the people that were on Cylance were the ones that weren't affected."
"The Managed Detection and Response service provided by Intercept X Endpoint is highly valuable. With a team of 600-700 individuals monitoring systems, they swiftly respond to attacks, either informing us to isolate or directly removing threats. This full MDR service is especially recommended for sectors like finance, where data security is critical. The deep learning technology within Intercept X Endpoint enhances our security posture by analyzing behaviors and algorithms to differentiate between legitimate users and threats, effectively preventing attacks on our network infrastructure."
"One reason why I have stuck with Sophos is because it grabs it and deals with it, and if it's known malware, it can quarantine it or delete it."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"Sophos Intercept X has a host of valuable features, including its anti-malware feature, which we considered key."
"The effectiveness of Intercept X Endpoint's deep learning technology in threat detection helps my team and my customers through automated incident response features."
"A valuable feature offered by Sophos is called Naked Security, and it entails the control managed by the firewall on the site regarding the desktop client interfacing with our cloud client."
"The most valuable features of Sophos Intercept X are the minimal configuration needed for the end user and the central view of all the endpoints. There are plenty of tools to control and manage the endpoints. Additionally, there is the capability of connecting the endpoint to the CLI."
"It is not just a simple virus scanning product. It handles more advanced needs."
 

Cons

"When it comes to malware files, it should be a little quick because, at times, it would give a wrong result in the sense of what it might be on malware, even if it still might be a normal one."
"Product might have some bugs."
"We had a problem with getting our older endpoints up to date, but their newest updates have been really good. I've been pleased with it in terms of what our needs are. It's doing what we want it to do."
"The GUI could be improved."
"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."
"In terms of areas of improvement, we have not completed our review of the product. We're also looking at other products. So, it's a little bit hard to tell what could be different because we have not completed the review of this product, but based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"I would like to see better protection, specifically to protect email applications."
"There's an overall lack of features."
"They could improve on the false positives, reporting and whitelisting features."
"The solution needs better dashboards that are easier to use."
"CylancePROTECT could be improved in its technical support and communication."
"The product does not do a lot of reporting on what it is taking care of. Enhanced reporting would be a welcome improvement."
"The AI of CylancePROTECT has room for improvement. I'm on a trial license of SentinelOne, and its AI is much better than what's on CylancePROTECT."
"I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we contact support, they tell us to update the latest agent, but we can't do that immediately due to medical device protocols and validation testing. I wish support would try to understand our issues better instead of giving this standard response. The machine learning feature they use often tells us to upgrade the agent or add things to the exclusion list, which isn't unacceptable."
"It could have integration with industrial base HMIS or Human Machine Interfaces Solutions. This is the industrial environment where you have a control center for all the automation that's happening, whether it is oil, gas, or chemical manufacturing. They often have to set up a computer at the back and watch the other stuff to get alerts. In these autonomous or on-premises environments, they often don't have access to email readily. Integration with other industrial solutions, such as HMIS, will allow them to communicate and get an alert that something has been found. This way, they can react to it sooner than having somebody watch the screen and keep checking the screen. Rockwell has its own suite. Similarly, Honeywell has its own suite. There's also an independent HMI/historian solution provider out there called VTSCADA. We actually get asked if we can get it to show up on a screen, which is difficult. Getting those alerts to work within an industrial environment would be a huge plus."
"I would like to see a better UI in terms of sifting through more specific data and providing analytics. A little bit more would be nice."
"Pricing is high."
"They should keep doing what they're doing. Both of them have entered the EDR/MDR space, and they're keeping up with their competitors. I have a hard time understanding why their capabilities aren't garnering more attention."
"The endpoint detection and response (EDR) technology has room for improvement because the information that it gives us to resolve our problems is poor nowadays."
"Installing Sophos Intercept X was not as straightforward, as we had to ask support and had to work with an integrator, though the process didn't take much time, e.g. it was completed within one hour."
"When there is an event generated by either the firewall or Intercept X, and the originating IP address is the same, these should be merged into a single event rather than two."
"It should offer better security updates."
"In terms of the site-to-site VPN elements, they tend to concentrate. It's quite simple when there are Meraki devices at both ends of the VPN but if there is another user at one end, on another device, it can be a bit tricky. So they could really simplify that process a bit."
"When we load Intercept X, it puts a load on the device. When it is scanning, it slows down the device. A system with basic specifications completely slows down till the scan is complete. They should improve this part."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."
"The price of the product is not very economical."
"This is an expensive solution."
"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."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"I am using the Community edition."
"CylancePROTECT's pricing is reasonable, at about €18 per user, per year."
"CylancePROTECT is an affordable solution."
"We pay our license on a yearly basis and have just renewed for two years."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"​Shop around for sure and be assured the price you pay will be close to other solutions available, but even at a slight mark-up from the other solutions, you are getting real endpoint protection versus nothing more than a cheap security blanket that might keep you warm at night."
"The tool is not that expensive."
"The monthly fee is $55 USD per user."
"Currently, we have competitive pricing for Cylance, which is affordable enough to consider."
"The price is pretty good."
"Intercept X for endpoints is around $35 per user per year. The server version is $95 per server per year."
"It is not very expensive but I don't have specific pricing details. The licensing is usually done on yearly basis."
"While I do not have much experience dealing with the price, we have been entitled to a substantial discount on the solution in our use of it as an educational tool."
"We were able to eliminate the ransomware using the one-month, full-featured trial license."
"One can pay for the license annually, or at two and five year intervals."
"Compared to other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, we are most certainly happy with its pricing. We did a three year-business deal."
"Its price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise22
 

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,...
What do you like most about Blackberry Protect?
It is a good endpoint solution. It is very easy to manage and detect the threat immediately. It will take the necessa...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blackberry Protect?
The price is reasonable for us at the moment. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with Blackberry Protect?
I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we conta...
How does Crodwstrike Falcon compare with Sophos Intercept X?
I like that Crowdstrike Falcon allows me to easily correlate data between my firewalls. Its detection and machine lea...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Intercept X?
Intercept X Endpoint has some impact on the budget. It is quite costly when measuring Intercept X Endpoint's protecti...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Blackberry Protect
Sophos Intercept X
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Panasonic, Noble Energy, Apria Healthcare Group Inc., Charles River Laboratories, Rovi Corporation, Toyota, Kiewit
Flexible Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity vs. Intercept X Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
883,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.