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HP Wolf Security vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
HP Wolf Security
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
17th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
44th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
3.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
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), 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 HP Wolf Security is 3.1%, down from 6.3% 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%
HP Wolf Security3.1%
Other86.6%
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.
BH
Owner at Stoneridge Engineering, LLC
Adds a layer of safety, especially for laptops operating in various environments
The tool's deployment is easy. HP Wolf Security's deployment was a swift process since it was initially compatible with Windows 10, the operating system on both machines. However, when I transitioned to Windows 11, I encountered minor issues that prompted me to delve deeper into Wolf Security to fine-tune security settings according to my preferences. While I mostly used default settings, there was an initial adjustment where I disabled the AI function related to malware. Currently, the system is running smoothly with no reported issues. Adjusting some settings raised concerns about compatibility between HP Wolf Security and Norton 360. Specifically, aspects of HP Wolf Security, such as the virtual machine component, intrigued me, but I hesitated due to potential conflicts. During my investigation, Windows 11 raised a flag, questioning the system's security settings with Norton 360 and HP Wolf Security. However, it seems that they coexist well without causing issues.
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

"Cortex XDR's most valuable feature is its intelligence-based dashboards."
"What I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is that it is a comprehensive solution that contains everything the organization may need when using endpoints."
"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 main benefit of using Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks while employing Palo Alto Firewall at the internet edge is that it improves security on our endpoint devices, integrating seamlessly with Palo Alto Firewalls to deliver comprehensive network, analyst, and security details all in a single dashboard, which allows us to manage everything from our network devices."
"The most valuable feature is that you can select remote access of any machine for sandboxing."
"We think that this product will help us grow, as it meets our needs currently and we can grow with it over time."
"Traps pays for itself within the first 16 months of a three-year subscription."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks has accelerated the response time for my security team, so we have been able to resolve issues faster than usual."
"Our overall security posture has absolutely improved as a result of adding Bromium to our security stack. We continue to have less user impact through a significantly reduced amount of malware infections. It's become a non-event."
"Looking at it in the big picture of the risk that you're mitigating and the protection that you're getting, it's phenomenal."
"Now, instead of us having to go through that analysis, they actually give us a monthly report that shows us: "Here's what you got hit with, here's what would have happened, here are the forensics behind the attack," and, obviously, Bromium stopped it."
"Bromium allows us to safely view images and quickly and safely surf our network so that we can take proper care of our patients efficiently, effectively, and expeditiously."
"The most valuable feature is the process isolation because it simply stops malware from infecting the machines."
"I use HP Wolf Security to add a layer of safety, especially for laptops operating in various environments."
"We've been able to isolate and prevent malicious code from external email attachments and from downloaded internet files. Those are the two big areas that have really made an impact."
"The feature that stands out the most is that when someone clicks on a link in an email... [if] that link is malicious and it has some malware or keylogger attached to it, when it opens up in that Bromium virtualized browser, there's no chance of it actually being on the machine and running, because as soon as they click that "X" in the upper right-hand side of the browser, everything just vanishes. That is an added plus."
"We had absolutely no issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint."
"Easy to understand and easy to set up endpoint security solution. It's a multifeatured product with web content filtering and automated investigation features. It also has a fantastic vulnerability management dashboard."
"Defender is integrated into the operating system. It's integrated with everything. You don't have to spend time analyzing what you have to do to be sure that the integration is okay between the security tool and all the other apps. This, from my point of view, is the main advantage."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are the ease of use and it was available within the operating system."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable. Currently, we have 600,000 users in our organization."
"Defender should be fine for home use. It has all the basic functionality you need. I can't speak to how well it works as an enterprise solution because I'm not in the space."
"For companies that are Microsoft shops, I would recommend the product."
"It's really stable. I've used a lot of stuff, a lot of products, like ESET and Kaspersky. None of them are comparable with this one. This one is much better."
 

Cons

"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"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."
"Enhancing UI simplicity and playbook flexibility are areas that could benefit from more low-code automation options for smoother integrations."
"It is not a suitable solution if you are looking for a single product with multiple features such as DLP, encryption, rollback, etc."
"I feel that it should not be a licensed activity because a feature should allow us to see applications running on end devices."
"It is not easy to sell Cortex XDR, not because it isn't a good tool. Its marketing needs to be improved."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can improve mobile integration to allow access to the console."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a strong tool, but it is true that digesting information sometimes makes the tool go a little bit slower."
"They need to improve the compatibility with other applications and its stability."
"They have always struggled with usability. The protection that it offers you is tremendous, but there's definitely an impact with use of resources on the computer. It's gotten a lot better now with Win 10. But sometimes, when you open up a website, it's going to take longer than it would without Bromium, and it's the same with documents."
"Reporting is one of the shortcomings of the product. We do mine the data that's in there from a forensics perspective... It becomes very difficult because you have to spend a lot of time digging through the volumes of data. Reporting is absolutely the biggest shortcoming."
"The tool behaves differently when I ported to Windows 11."
"When you deploy, not only is the user asked to reboot their computer, they are also asked to wait for 20 minutes while it sits there and initializes. It definitely impacts the end-user. It takes time away from their day."
"Initially, when we came in contact with Bromium a few years ago, it had a nice threat analyst, or a LAVA Pop, which is what they used to call it. Once it detected malware, it would show us the malware's path... I don't see that on the computers now. We only get to see that in the console. I would like to still see that on the individual machines because when we go out to look at a machine, we don't necessarily have access to the console."
"After a major release, there's always a lot of "dust settling." You have to work through all those issues and then you're fine for a while. The problem is, it's stable, it's fine, until the next major release comes out. Then you go back into the cycle again of uncertainty, instability, working through issues until they have patched and remediated all the problems that you're having. It's not unlike any other vendor though"
"Room for improvement would be keeping up with the rate of change, specifically on Windows platforms."
"It needs to improve the cybersecurity for lateral movements. For example, when a hacker tries to enter a machine, they try to get the password by doing a lateral movement."
"The product development team makes frequent changes that affect the stability of the solution."
"Auto recovery is the most important feature that we would need from this solution. For decryption, similar to Malwarebytes, there should be something to be able to recover the data up to the last normal status. Its ability to recover data to the last normal copy must not exceed 5 to 10 minutes."
"The application control feature requires improvement."
"The initial support process can be lacking as first-line support is sometimes not well-versed technically, resulting in repeated exchanges to finally engage a knowledgeable support person."
"One thing that was lacking in Defender was web filtering. Its web filtering wasn't as comprehensive. Sophos was a little bit better than Defender for blocking URLs or installing programs."
"The technical from Microsoft could be better. It is not as good as other solutions."
"It is not very scalable from the eyes of an MSP because there is no dashboard that you can use to see all of your devices that have Windows Defender unless you have your own dashboard or an RMM tool to actually look at it. So, you might not get to know that a particular computer of a client is doing something, and it might have got a virus. That person might know that, but unless you set it up to actually send you the information, you won't get to know that. That's one of the things that is hard with Microsoft Defender. It is not made for the MSP world where you have one pane of glass to see all of your clients with Microsoft Defender on it unless your RMM tool already has that built-in and it can see the telemetry from Microsoft Defender."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the product is not very economical."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"I am using the Community edition."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is on a yearly-basis."
"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. I have customers that have voiced that the solution is good for the value but if I want to sell more of the solution the price reduction would help."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"The product came as a bundle with the machine."
"The pricing is very fair compared to the competition. The licensing is straightforward."
"I think the pricing is a good value. All of these security products are always going to be very expensive, but I don't think Bromium is unreasonable. I think Bromium is decently priced. It’s a tiered licensing platform. The more you buy, the cheaper gets per unit, and I think their tiers are very well defined. I think they're fair."
"Pricing is reasonable."
"The product's pricing is a good value. We only run it on our internet-facing workstations, we don't run it on everything in our environment. We are very selective. Some organizations may want to consider doing something like that to reduce their license count."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is cost-effective because there's one unified license, and with this unified license, you get the capabilities for your cloud applications, servers, and endpoints as well. Therefore, it saves us a lot of money because the cost with other solutions is for just one piece of OS or maybe an urban environment. The licensing process is not complex as well."
"This solution is part of an enterprise license we have."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable and fair."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"It's included with the Windows Operating System, I don't pay for any licensing fees."
"It's all pretty easy. For some clients, it's an easier sell because it's just an add-on to their existing Microsoft licensing and Office 365 licensing."
"The price is fair for the features Microsoft delivers. If you want tailor-made features, you have to mix different licenses. It isn't straightforward."
"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
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise97
 

Questions from the Community

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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,...
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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
Bromium vSentry
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Valspar
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about HP Wolf Security vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
912,517 professionals have used our research since 2012.