Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CylancePROTECT vs Intercept X Endpoint (Sophos) comparison

Sponsored
 

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), 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)
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (14th), ZTNA (9th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (13th), Ransomware Protection (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.5%, down from 4.0% 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 1.6%, down from 1.8% 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 Networks3.5%
Intercept X Endpoint1.6%
BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity1.3%
Other93.6%
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

"It is an easy-to-use tool."
"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."
"The anti-exploit is impenetrable. We chose Traps because it is the only product that we were not able to get anything past."
"The integrations are out-of-the-box, as are the playbooks."
"WildFire AI is the best option for this product."
"I've found the solution to be highly scalable for enterprises."
"The product's most valuable features are massive user and feature intelligence exploit detection."
"The product has an intuitive dashboard."
"The CylancePROTECT agent is very low on CPU usage, so it has virtually no adverse impact on my servers, desktops, or workstations."
"I rate the tool a ten out of ten when it comes to the ease of use or management part."
"It handles situations that the other threat management tools wouldn't find. It has worked well covering the weaker sides of the other products that we're integrating."
"CylancePROTECT is a fairly decent antivirus."
"The Application Guard and ByteGuard are useful features."
"Has good RAM capacity for the power I need"
"The non-daily requirement to update signatures is the most valuable feature. From a functional point of view, it is pretty spot on. For instance, we compared an algorithm from five years ago to today's algorithm, and it was 98% accurate. It has the ability to detect and mitigate. In the industrial environment that we work in, there's what we call OT versus IT. You are IT Central, but this is OT. Generally, we don't have the same level of skillset as IT individuals or IT professionals have. This particular product doesn't require you to be a computer scientist to be able to understand its proprietary algorithm and to be able to deploy, use, and work within it. It integrates well with a robust SIEM or SOAR solution, and it plays nice with others. We use other detection solutions like CyberX or site provision with Cisco, and it plays nice. That's one of the things we really liked about it."
"I find the actual overall endpoint malware protection the most valuable feature of CylancePROTECT."
"The forensics within the solution are quite good. The ransomware mitigation is also impressive."
"The most valuable feature is that it literally works. We have reduced a lot of complaints after switching to Sophos."
"I find the security heartbeat feature with synchronized security very useful. It's a very nice feature that allows you to basically switch off an endpoint. When an endpoint has got a virus or something like that, or it's infected or compromised, you can isolate it from the network, but only if you've got an XG Firewall as well. It also provides ease of use. It is the only antivirus that can recognize 25 out of the 36 ransomware and virus techniques that have been often used in terms of the behavior base using heuristics. It's beautiful, utterly amazing. No other antivirus can do that."
"Its AI algorithms provide excellent protection against attackers."
"The most valuable feature is the behavioral, non-signature-based threat detection."
"The updates and a lot of the day-to-day fiddling that you would have to do with it, can all be done from the cloud so it's easy to manage, and very easy to administer."
"The solution protects us."
"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."
 

Cons

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by adding a sandbox feature to better compete with their competitors which have it."
"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."
"Currently, if you use Palo Alto endpoint protection as the only solution it's very complicated to remove pre-existing threats."
"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."
"Cortex XDR could be improved with more GUI features."
"It's more focused on network communication. If a customer wants to increase the level of protection and start working with documents, it's impossible to integrate these features into the system. It's more of a communication-oriented system than a content security-oriented system."
"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."
"It's very time-consuming to log support issues and the people that answer the tickets aren't very knowledgeable."
"The security scripting needs improvement. It needs deeper security for scripting."
"The price for this EPP platform is expensive and could be improved."
"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."
"An area for improvement in CylancePROTECT is its pricing, as it's a bit costly."
"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."
"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 solution needs better dashboards that are easier to use."
"I would like to see them fix the alerting system so that the endpoint reporting is a bit more streamlined."
"As for improvement, more notifications or emails about what to watch out for globally would be nice. For instance, information about the spread of a current phishing campaign or ransomware would be very helpful. I find that I have to dig in the back to find out what is happening on the global scene for things to be aware of."
"I recommend that Intercept X Endpoint should include a patch assessment feature. Various vendors offer virtual patching solutions, which could be a game-changer, especially for the financial sector where frequent service restarts are challenging. These solutions allow patching servers without the need for restarts. Incorporating these features into Intercept X Endpoint would enhance its effectiveness in securing endpoints and servers."
"Needs more flexible reporting, particularly for medium to large size companies."
"It would be beneficial if you could expand support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 without charging an additional fee."
"From the management side, we receive detailed information. Sophos has many features, such as Threat Hunting but that comes with the XDR version of the solution. There's Sophos Intercept X and then there's Sophos Intercept X with XDR technology. We bought the XDR and then now the MTR, Managed Threat Response version available too. They have different packages for clients which gives them different options to pick from. If Sophos could combine more features into one package it would be beneficial."
"The security is good but the feature set is limited."
"It has a performance hit on a local laptop. There's an agent installed and we are bothered a lot by it because it seems to be using a lot of computer resources."
"It should offer better security updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Very costly product."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"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."
"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."
"It's not so heavily priced; rather, it's average and decent."
"The price is reasonable for us at the moment. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten."
"Do not get hung up on price. You pay for what you get and expensive will hurt one time, where cheap will hurt forever, especially if you fall victim to a ransom attack, etc.​"
"The product cost is about $5, per user, per month."
"We went through a third party initially to do the renewal, but we won't be renewing, we will move on to something else."
"CylancePROTECT is worth the money, but I'm not sure of its exact price. I can't remember off the top of my head."
"The solution's pricing is around the same as most EDRs but slightly behind some of the major ones."
"The license price for this solution could be better. It's on the expensive side."
"The price of the solution is average compared to the market."
"Licensing fees are paid monthly."
"We were able to eliminate the ransomware using the one-month, full-featured trial license."
"The product is moderately priced."
"You are able to purchase more licenses for the number of devices or servers that you require. There are many other features available but our license does not include them, such as XDR, which is endpoint detection and response. We have not explored the new features as of yet but plan to in the coming future."
"The price of Sophos Intercept X is competitive."
"The solution is not expensive."
"We have bought a three-year license."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are best for your needs.
883,448 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
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.
883,448 professionals have used our research since 2012.