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Intercept X Endpoint vs VMware Carbon Black App Control 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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Intercept X Endpoint
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (15th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (17th), ZTNA (13th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (13th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (16th), Ransomware Protection (3rd)
VMware Carbon Black App Con...
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Control (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Intercept X Endpoint1.8%
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.7%
CrowdStrike Falcon5.8%
Other85.7%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
Application Control Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Carbon Black App Control10.4%
ThreatLocker Zero Trust Platform15.7%
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform12.7%
Other61.2%
Application Control
 

Q&A Highlights

TT
IT Manager at a wellness & fitness company with 51-200 employees
Dec 03, 2020
 

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.
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.
AS
Security Administrator at EJADA
We can isolate problem machines and limit their access
We use App Control to scan the network for virtual machines that have unauthorized applications. We can isolate the problem VMs and control application access.  More than two years. I rate Carbon Black App Control 10 out of 10 for stability. I rate App Control six out of 10 for scalability.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable for us is the correlation feature."
"It can automatically correlate events and logs, which is very helpful for an IT administrator. It can correlate different kinds of malware activities over a network, agent, or host system. You do not need to do it manually. It is a good feature. It is also a user-friendly solution. We have deployed it on the cloud because our space does not provide any flexibility for on-premises deployment, but Palo Alto has added some flexibility to install it on-premises. It must be like the same Cortex XDR agent for all the VPN services, web filtering services, and everything else."
"We think that this product will help us grow, as it meets our needs currently and we can grow with it over time."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to rapidly detect certain hardware files."
"The tool's use cases are relevant to security."
"But overall, when we speak about security and protection, they are one of the top providers."
"Overall, it's a great platform; it integrates very well with other solutions from Palo Alto and also with our vendors, the ease of use is excellent, I love the root cause analysis from Cortex, which is amazing, and in a few clicks you can have the full root cause."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"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."
"The solution is easy to install."
"The most valuable features are ease of use and the GUI."
"From what I can observe, I would say that the solution is stable."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The thing that I like about it is the synchronized security. You can tie endpoint protection and firewalls and a whole range of other services and products. You can get your servers taken in under this."
"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 product is very complete; there are products that are technically stronger, however, this product has everything in one solution, which makes it a strong endpoint option."
"I use the console to check for threats and I find it to be very user-friendly."
"We have been dealing with VMware Carbon Black App Control for one year, and during this time we have already made sure that this is the best solution to protect our user machines and servers."
"It offers a sense of security where anything that comes in, regardless of what it is, unless you approve it manually, it's not going to run."
"Overall, this is a good product and one that I recommend."
"The visibility, reporting, and the ability to stop or prevent malicious or undesired applications from being installed are the most valuable features."
"The API integration is good."
"We use App Control to scan the network for virtual machines that have unauthorized applications. We can isolate the problem VMs and control application access."
"The visibility is valuable."
 

Cons

"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"Previously, the endpoint would leave the environment, not being on our VPN, essentially unable to interact with the server to upload files. It was unable to retrieve new file verdicts. It was using a thing called "local analysis" to determine if something was a malicious file or not. There was no dynamic analysis."
"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"I have run into some detection issues with Cortex XDR. It needs to be better at detection of internal attacks."
"If he is using a smaller company, he can depend on some other tools because Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a bit expensive."
"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."
"The main issue I could point out is the offline agents and the way that it is missing."
"On the pricing aspect, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks needs to have a more reasonable rate, particularly for customers in Sri Lanka and Asian countries."
"While Sophos is helpful technically, their tech support is not so good."
"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."
"From my perspective, what needs to be improved in Intercept X Endpoint are the weak points of this solution and what needs to be eliminated or enhanced."
"They might want to offer an MSP model for licensing, to offer the solution as a software as a service."
"The number one thing I would like is if their support could be a little faster and it would be a little easier to get a hold of support when you need them."
"Intercept X needs more reporting and device management features, so I can get messages from PCs that let me know if I need to do something with them."
"Sophos Intercept X doesn't have its own firewall that utilizes the Windows Firewall or intrusion prevention."
"I think this solution needs more flexible reporting, particularly for medium to large size companies and I'd like to see some varied options for making reports."
"I rate App Control six out of 10 for scalability."
"The reporting is not good and needs to be improved."
"Another issue is that even sometimes if you approve, for example, Adobe as a publisher, you say any product or anything that's from Adobe has to run. It generally runs, but especially in a large environment and with a lot of users, sometimes, due to some certification validation issues or some other issue, it might stop the process from running. Genuine processes like Adobe and Chrome can get blocked. so that needs to be improved."
"Carbon Black does not use the database for identifying the file, the fields, or malware."
"Its initial setup is very complex. We got help from their implementation team because if it is not set up properly, you can really hinder the operation of your environment and things won't execute or run."
"Its setup is very complex, and it requires guidance from the support team, but it is well worth the effort."
"The initial setup is somewhat complex."
"I would like to see the addition of some more features that are in other, similar solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Very costly product."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"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."
"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"You can purchase a license for one to three years."
"The pricing is quite expensive compared to the rest. I would rate the pricing a four out of ten; one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The price of this product should be reduced because it is a little high."
"Intercept X for endpoints is around $35 per user per year. The server version is $95 per server per year."
"We have an annual subscription."
"Licensing fees are paid monthly."
"On a per-user basis, my company has to pay a certain amount of money."
"The price of Sophos Intercept X is competitive."
"The pricing for this product is competitive and our customers who told us that often, Carbon Back is the cheaper solution."
"We pay a fee for support, which is renewed annually."
"Its price is reasonable and what is expected for these types of products."
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Answers from the Community

TT
IT Manager at a wellness & fitness company with 51-200 employees
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020
Officially the answer is Intercept X and anti-virus from other mfgs. can co-exist on an endpoint. Carbon Black is a bit more than just AV, so I would get a free 30-day trial of Int X and try it on one endpoint.
2 out of 3 answers
BA
Sales and Mktg Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Dec 12, 2019
Officially the answer is Intercept X and anti-virus from other mfgs. can co-exist on an endpoint. Carbon Black is a bit more than just AV, so I would get a free 30-day trial of Int X and try it on one endpoint.
AL
President/Owner at LibreTech
Dec 13, 2019
I’m not sure but if you are using Sophos Intercept X I would suggest just adding the Sophos EDR component.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business76
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise4
 

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,...
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...
What needs improvement with Sophos Intercept X?
Intercept X Endpoint can be improved in several ways. Currently, it is only available on the cloud, and having it ava...
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Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Sophos Intercept X
CB Protection, Carbon Black CB Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Flexible Systems
Kaas Tailored, Core-Mark, Indeed, Hologic, Landmark Credit Union, Project Worldwide
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