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DeepArmor vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Executive Summary

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)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
DeepArmor
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
58th
Average Rating
2.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.8%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DeepArmor is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.5%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.5%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.8%
DeepArmor0.4%
Other89.3%
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.
Muhammad Fahad - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Tech. & Support (Information Technology) at Texitech
Security needs improvement and email scanning features are not included
The email scanning feature is not available in DeepArmor. We cannot use this for email scanning. There are many options that are not available in DeepArmor. We cannot use separate applications for different internet applications or for different internet scanning. This is why we cannot use it. I would like to see additional features such as email scanning, which should be included, or malware detections, and other cybersecurity features should be included. It could also be more secure.
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Palo Alto is one of the tech vendors that always provides top-of-the-line products."
"Palo Alto is the core of the security infrastructure in the environment."
"The most valuable feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is its machine-learning capabilities. Additionally, there is full integration with other solutions."
"The solution allows us to gain remote access without the user's knowledge and take the necessary actions on the device."
"After deploying Traps, we saw the performance of the network improve by 65 to 70 percent."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks has changed the way my security team detects, investigates, and responds to threats, as we are able to see the files, unwanted files, unsecured files, and unauthorized files, so we are quarantining them."
"I generally believe that Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is probably the best in the market right now."
"It detected stuff that other things wouldn't detect."
"It is easy to install."
"Stable endpoint manager, antivirus, and antimalware, with fast technical support and a straightforward setup."
"If anyone is looking for an antivirus instantly, they can enable Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on their Windows operating system."
"It's got good detection rates, low on system resources, doesn't interfere or hamper workflows, and it's easy to use."
"This is a very go, proactive solution to threat protection using advanced analysis."
"The most valuable aspect lies in its automation capabilities, particularly within security automation."
"The solution provides protections and reports about strange behavior and automatically blocks some of it. I love the way that statuses are represented."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has helped free up the SOC team to work on other projects and tasks."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's WCS function, a content filtering solution, has proven to be the most useful, stable, and reliable option for our current needs."
 

Cons

"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can improve mobile integration to allow access to the console."
"They are charging for Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) services, so if the per GB data could be provided at a certain level free of cost or at the same cost which the customer is taking for the entire bundle, that would be better."
"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."
"I recommend adding a data loss prevention (DLP) solution to Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of DLP policies alongside antivirus policies via a single agent and console, making it more competitive as other OEMs often offer DLP solutions as part of their antivirus products."
"I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response). Then it would work well with SIEM Response."
"The negative aspect I see is the economic model used by Palo Alto."
"For Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, if I had to point out improvements, I would say the UI is still somewhat difficult for beginners."
"The email scanning feature is not available in DeepArmor. We cannot use this for email scanning."
"With the XDR dashboard, when you're doing an investigation and you're drilling down to obtain further details it tends to open many different tabs that take you away from your main tabs. You can end up having 10 tabs open for one investigation. This is another area for improvement because you can end up getting lost in the multiple tabs. Therefore, the central console can be improved so that it does not take you to several different pages for each investigation."
"Sometimes it is a little lacking, but for the most part, they are able to provide exactly what I need."
"I would like MDE to have the ability to isolate a certain amount of time on the timeline."
"There is a need for improvement in reducing false positives."
"It is using a large space in your memory all the time."
"The second major area for improvement involves enhanced capabilities for different operating systems or platforms. That is, even though we have coverage for different operating systems or platforms such as Linux, we don't get all of the controls and enhanced capabilities that are available with Windows devices."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is secure but when it comes to security all solutions could improve security."
"Technical support is an area that needs a lot of improvement. Microsoft does not have the right people who can help with any challenges or problems, and ultimately, we end up finding the solutions on our own rather than relying on them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"The tool's price is moderate."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"There are licensing fees."
"You just pay Windows 10 prices, then you have antivirus software. As a price comparison, Defender's costs are very low."
"It is free."
"We have seen ROI. Most of the other competing alternatives will cost up to around $30 per user device. We average 400 devices. Therefore, the amount that we save each year is 400 times $30."
"Microsoft Defender is an expensive product in my country."
"Compared to ESET, the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is on the higher side."
"They are now doing it on an endpoint basis. It is based on the number of endpoints, which is good."
"The price is higher than others because it is doing more than what the others are doing."
"Buying individual point products would've cost us a lot more money than one integrated solution that also capitalizes on Teams Voice and things of that nature. Given our size, buying individual products would have easily cost us a million dollars."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
No data available
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise97
 

Questions from the Community

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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,...
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Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior sol...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never pu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint?
We have been discussing pricing, setup cost, and licensing, and we are currently on an E3. We are discussing going to...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
AV-Comparatives
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, SentinelOne, CrowdStrike and others in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP). Updated: August 2026.
911,839 professionals have used our research since 2012.