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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

"We have a complete overview of all our PCs and it's very easy to handle and to use the interface. It has a lot of benefits for us."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is easy to use and does not consume a lot of hardware resources."
"Its interface and pricing are most valuable. It is better than other vendors in terms of security."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"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."
"The positive impacts I see from Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks include a complete 360-degree view of our security posture altogether, being a uniform platform where we are ingesting logs from multiple resources."
"After installing this solution, it identified, blocked, and provided the complete attack chain, which was very helpful."
"WildFire AI is the best option for this product."
"It provides good insight into the programs, applications, or websites that may need attention."
"CylancePROTECT is very stable - we've had no issues with performance and no errors or bugs."
"I find the actual overall endpoint malware protection the most valuable feature of CylancePROTECT."
"I rate the tool a ten out of ten when it comes to the ease of use or management part."
"The most valuable features of CylancePROTECT are its powerful machine-learning capabilities and predictive intelligence."
"​Very easy to deploy. It can be done one by one or deployed by customizing an MSI file for GPO push.​"
"A user can continue to add endpoints and the solution will continue to perform well."
"The platform's most valuable features are the malware detection capabilities."
"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."
"This solution is easy to configure."
"This product integrates well with Sophos firewalls and should be seriously considered by Sophos Firewall clients."
"Ransomware protection is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"Once we started using CrowdStrike, it was so lightweight; the servers have hardly any lag unlike when we used to use Intercept X Endpoint for servers, so it's actually very good."
"Intercept X Endpoint positively impacts my organization by protecting me from viruses and attacks, thus preventing loss of productivity."
"It is one of the best in terms of technicality."
"The package we use also comes with spam filtering features, which are quite useful."
 

Cons

"The dashboard is the area that needs to improve so that we can have the ability to drill down without having to go elsewhere to verify results."
"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."
"The main issue I could point out is the offline agents and the way that it is missing."
"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."
"Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth."
"Currently, if you use Palo Alto endpoint protection as the only solution it's very complicated to remove pre-existing threats."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by proving hard disk encryption. If it could support this it would be a complete solution."
"The tool needs to be improved in terms of integration and interface."
"The security scripting needs improvement. It needs deeper security for scripting."
"I would like to see them fix the alerting system so that the endpoint reporting is a bit more streamlined."
"The product needs to continue to offer better alerts. In particular, around false positives. It needs to reduce them from happening."
"Additionally, their channel management has been lacking, with a notable disregard for small and medium-sized businesses, focusing primarily on large enterprises and very large MSPs."
"An area for improvement in CylancePROTECT is its pricing, as it's a bit costly."
"I'd like them to do software distribution too, but they said that that's architecturally not at the product line."
"The price for this EPP platform is expensive and could be improved."
"The stability could be improved."
"There are not any solutions that are a 10 out of 10. A 10 would be perfect protection with no impact on the performance of the device. This is not the case, there is some impact on the performance of the device."
"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."
"We are considering switching from this solution as a result of the closer integration needed between the firewall systems and the EDR."
"Deployment on cloud needs to be carried out manually."
"The integration has room for improvement, especially with Mac OS."
"The tool should be made compatible with Linux and Microsoft operating systems."
"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."
"It's a challenge to do system maintenance work on a notebook. You always have to disable Sophos first."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"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."
"The price of the product is not very economical."
"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"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."
"We pay our license on a yearly basis and have just renewed for two years."
"It is expensive, but not unreasonable."
"The price is reasonable for us at the moment. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten."
"The initial end-point cost may seem a little high (~$55/device/year) but when you look at the total peace of mind that the solution provides, with no reboots for updates, and negligible performance impact, it is well worth it."
"The product cost is about $5, per user, per month."
"The solution's pricing is around the same as most EDRs but slightly behind some of the major ones."
"Currently, we have competitive pricing for Cylance, which is affordable enough to consider."
"This cost of the license is approximately $5 USD monthly per user."
"I would rate the price 7 out of 10, where 1 is most expensive and 10 is cheapest. Also, a little reduction in price can be a great move for Intercept X Endpoint."
"The solution requires an annual subscription."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"Its cost is good."
"We have an annual subscription."
"I find the pricing to be a little bit expensive, although it is acceptable, for now."
"The product is moderately priced."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Comms Service Provider
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.
882,744 professionals have used our research since 2012.