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Heimdal Endpoint Security vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

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
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Heimdal Endpoint Security
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
40th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
37th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (28th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (25th), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (12th), Ransomware Protection (12th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
2nd
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (6th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.6%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heimdal Endpoint Security is 0.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 7.2%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint7.2%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.6%
Heimdal Endpoint Security0.6%
Other88.6%
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.
DEEPAK KUMAR PACHDEO DUBEY - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Support Specialist at PXGEO
Delivers efficiency and agility with USB control limitations
One area where we lag is that, since we use everything from Heimdal, including XDR and other features, we also use the privilege manager feature called Elevation. What we lack is granular USB control. We have an issue where we can only switch USB on or off. I want to whitelist specific devices in the network, which I currently cannot do.
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

"The information the dashboard provides is very clear."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is easy to use and does not consume a lot of hardware resources."
"Cortex XDR lets us manage several clients from the same console, and its endpoint defense is more advanced than traditional antivirus."
"It is an easy-to-use tool."
"After deploying Traps, we saw the performance of the network improve by 65 to 70 percent."
"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."
"The initial setup isn't too bad."
"The stability of the solution is very good. We have about 100 users on it right now, and we use it twice a week."
"As compared to multiple solutions I have used in the past, Heimdal is a very agile and lightweight solution."
"Heimdal is a very agile and lightweight solution."
"We are able to productively integrate with existing on-prem, hybrid, or cloud applications."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is free and part of the licensing stack of other Microsoft products."
"Web filtering is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint because it effectively maintains security for website access."
"We use Microsoft Defender for the antivirus."
"We have liked the fact that it comes with Microsoft Windows 10 and it is constantly updated with all new virus definitions. It is also updated with new security features on a regular basis."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its ability to bring together all the data, providing more information than just antivirus hits."
"It works well with different solutions from Microsoft."
"The quantitative impact this has had on my organization's security is that definitely the secure score has improved, which obviously helps on the insurance side as well as showing our customers that their data is secured with us."
 

Cons

"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."
"Managing the product should be easier."
"Whenever the tool releases a new version when deploying the product across the organization, I feel like there are some disturbances in the CPU usage after upgrading the tool to the latest version."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by adding a sandbox feature to better compete with their competitors which have it."
"The solution needs better reports. I think they should let the customer go in and customize the reports."
"A little bit more automation would be nice."
"I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response). Then it would work well with SIEM Response."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses. For example, if users select a license, they think they will have all the platforms they need to improve their network or security. But after some time, Palo Alto Networks changed their licensing, and some of the features that, for example, were free at the beginning now have a cost. I think the integration can be improved. For example, a lot of tools are just integrated through APIs."
"What we lack is granular USB control."
"What we lack is granular USB control. We have an issue where we can only switch USB on or off."
"Phishing and Malware detection could be better."
"There is no behavior analytics for devices and endpoints. There is no behavior-based protection."
"The end-user also cannot do some advanced actions on it. It's a little bit complicated for our end-user, so it needs to be simplified."
"Integrating this with third-party systems has some complexity involved."
"There is a need for improvement in reducing false positives."
"They should bring back the feature of a dedicated proxy device for communication to the cloud. As of now, all the agents are required to send the logs directly to the cloud. There should be a solution where you can put a proxy and all the logs are consolidated, like a forwarder."
"Alerts need to be sent immediately because as it is now, you see some of them without delay and others arrive perhaps 30 minutes later, and it leaves important gaps in terms of information gathering."
"Microsoft Defender could be improved with features more like the McAfee ePO. It would be better if I had a console to get all the information for my endpoints."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"This is an expensive solution."
"I feel it is fairly priced."
"The tool's price is moderate."
Information not available
"When compared with other vendors, the pricing is very high."
"The nice thing about Defender and Sentinel is that the cost is based on the data logs that you ingest from the Defender endpoints and data connectors. I don't have to buy a 25- or 50- or 1,000-user or enterprise license. I can buy one license at a time."
"The solution comes as a part of Windows 10 and it is covered under its license."
"There is no licensing fee."
"Defender doesn't cost that much. When you use Microsoft technology, you can start with the free version and see how much the technology helps your organization solve security problems before you use the subscription. They also do this pay-as-you-go model, so you only pay when you use it."
"For most people, the price of the license is not something that they have to worry about."
"You need a license to use this solution."
"The cost is high for E5 licenses, but if we go with the E3 license, most of the features are not covered."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise48
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise95
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Heimdal Endpoint Security?
Pricing, compared to what we had before, was quite economical. There was a difference of about twenty percent or some...
What needs improvement with Heimdal Endpoint Security?
One area where we lag is that, since we use everything from Heimdal, including XDR and other features, we also use th...
What is your primary use case for Heimdal Endpoint Security?
My company colleagues and I use this antivirus solution. I am part of a company where I deploy solutions, and I also ...
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
Heimdal Next-Gent Endpoint Antivirus, Thor Vigilance Enterprise, Heimdal Endpoint Detection and Response, Heimdal DNS Security - Endpoint, Heimdal Threat Prevention, Heimdal Ransomware Encryption Protection
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
Brother, Symbion, CPH West
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Microsoft, SentinelOne and others in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP). Updated: April 2026.
886,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.