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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

"Traps has drastically reduced our endpoint attack surface via advanced detection capabilities, sandboxing of never before seen programs, and by drastically limiting where executables can launch in the first place."
"One thing that I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, it is detecting all the suspicious or malicious binaries, and it has integration with Palo Alto Firewall."
"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"This software helps us understand any issues that may arise when someone is not at work."
"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 solution allows us to gain remote access without the user's knowledge and take the necessary actions on the device."
"It's very stable. I've never experienced downtime for the ASM console or ASM core."
"The initial setup isn't too bad."
"It is extremely simple to manage and deploy."
"The platform's most valuable features are the malware detection capabilities."
"CylancePROTECT works on AI technology, is always up to date, and uses very few resources on your devices."
"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."
"What I like best about CylancePROTECT is its accuracy, as it doesn't give many false positives."
"The solution is pretty easy to scale."
"I've found the AI engine in CylancePROTECT to be particularly effective for technology and in preventing unknown threats."
"The dashboard is user-friendly."
"Scalability is good."
"The most valuable features are the cloud administration and the strength of the ransomware protection."
"This solution offers very good performance and it has great features."
"I have found the most valuable feature to be the EDR."
"The EDR (Enhanced Data Detection and Response) and the DLP (Data Loss Prevention) components are valuable assets."
"Malware protection and application blocking are absolutely great. The DLP and malware features are very helpful. It is also very user-friendly, reliable, and scalable. It is easy to set up. We are also happy with its price and support."
"The effectiveness of Intercept X Endpoint's deep learning technology in threat detection helps my team and my customers through automated incident response features."
 

Cons

"Cortex XDR is trickier to configure than other Palo Alto products. This is one area where we are not so satisfied."
"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."
"Currently, if you use Palo Alto endpoint protection as the only solution it's very complicated to remove pre-existing threats."
"It is not a suitable solution if you are looking for a single product with multiple features such as DLP, encryption, rollback, etc."
"I think sometimes Cortex XDR agent automatically stops event capturing from the device, and then even the dashboard does not get any notifications from the agent."
"Traps doesn't work with McAfee. You need to remove McAfee to install Traps. This is very common, and its nothing that should be an issue. Some antivirus engines recognize Traps as an threat component, so maybe they need to shake hands somewhere."
"The solution should add unwanted malicious hash values to a block list so that whenever the action is triggered, it will automatically prevent the malicious content."
"However, if you do not have Palo Alto in your environment, you are paying these additional services just for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, so it is not a cost-effective solution."
"It's a good solution but some features just need to be updated."
"It was not effective. There were a lot of false positives, even when we use Adobe, and everybody uses Adobe, which is not a threat."
"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."
"The product needs to continue to offer better alerts. In particular, around false positives. It needs to reduce them from happening."
"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."
"The product must make the interface a little more user-friendly."
"CylancePROTECT could be improved in its technical support and communication."
"The company that sells us the licenses sometimes doesn't know how to do certain things."
"It would be beneficial if you could expand support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 without charging an additional fee."
"It's a bit heavy on the computers. So once you install it, the computer slows down. It is a resource-intensive solution."
"The solution can be expensive, although we do see the value in it."
"Intercept X could enhance its support services, particularly in terms of response time and resource allocation."
"Sophos Intercept X doesn't have its own firewall that utilizes the Windows Firewall or intrusion prevention."
"Needs more flexible reporting, particularly for medium to large size companies."
"It's a challenge to do system maintenance work on a notebook. You always have to disable Sophos first."
"It should offer better security updates."
 

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."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"The tool's price is moderate."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"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 price was fine."
"The solution provides me with competitive pricing."
"We pay our license on a yearly basis and have just renewed for two years."
"The license price for this solution could be better. It's on the expensive side."
"​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."
"Review closely how many endpoints you actually need before buying into a pricing level. Deal and deal with the VAR of your choice."
"The product cost is about $5, per user, per month."
"We would just add more if there are new users, but right now you just need one license for per user."
"This cost of the license is approximately $5 USD monthly per user."
"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."
"Licensing is based on the number of users. They give a discount for editors who are considered as important members. From what I know, Sophos products are not expensive. If you have a license extension, you just need to contact the editor or partner to change the mode of licensing or extend the license to cover more people."
"Licensing costs are not expensive."
"Compared to other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, we are most certainly happy with its pricing. We did a three year-business deal."
"The price of this product should be reduced because it is a little high."
"One can pay for the license annually, or at two and five year intervals."
"We were able to eliminate the ransomware using the one-month, full-featured trial license."
"The price of this solution is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
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.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.