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Malwarebytes Teams vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 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)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Malwarebytes Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
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) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Malwarebytes Teams is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.7%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.7%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.9%
Malwarebytes Teams1.6%
Other87.8%
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.
reviewer2594097 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at a wholesaler/distributor with 11-50 employees
Exceptional malware protection with regular updates and behavior-based detection
There are no built-in backups or integrated backup options, which could be an opportunity. The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it. Other customers have mentioned issues with false positives. It lacks enterprise-level management and more enterprise functionality. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are much more enterprise-grade solutions. Malwarebytes has limited integration with cybersecurity tools and lacks enterprise integrations because it is not an enterprise product.
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 one feature of Palo Alto Networks Traps that our organization finds most valuable is the App ID service."
"Cortex XDR is a simple platform that's easy for administrators and users. You have a lot of flexibility to change or customize the features."
"The user interface of the solution is sophisticated and straightforward."
"We switched because there were a lot of added features with Palo Alto that Check Point didn't have, and it was an upgrade for us."
"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 solution helps find bugs, and it is safe to use to prevent attacks by hackers."
"The multi-layered approach to the product gives you confidence that it will stop exploits, ransomware, worms, or viruses from compromising endpoints, essentially providing peace of mind."
"On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks a nine."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to customize for different groups."
"The platform is straightforward to install."
"For a company with about 100 or more PC units, the solution is quite effective, makes monitoring easy, offers a lot of reporting, and provides protection for many applications including Windows and Zoom."
"The central management of devices from different sites is a very good feature; this has made them much easier to manage."
"I never have to look at it or do anything with it, and then my system just stays clean."
"I was very satisfied with Malwarebytes in terms of its antivirus abilities."
"It is intuitive and easy to use, and for the most part, it does a good job of catching things and is good at stopping stuff."
"Being able to carry out a full scan on your system."
"Endpoint's most valuable feature is deep analysis."
"Integration between Microsoft products is very easy."
"The performance of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has been good."
"The features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that I like the most are that it is not a very intrusive product, so it is not using up a lot of compute."
"It can reach our applications and PC activities in the cloud."
"The main benefits are compliance and protection from threats, helping us avoid disruption in the business and maintain uptime while prioritizing threats across our enterprise, which is very important for us."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint gives us a second layer of security as well as the third layer of security."
"The initial setup is quite simple and quite straightforward; it's not overly complex or difficult, the deployment is fast and only takes a minute or so, and you only need one person, an engineer, to manage the product once it is up and running."
 

Cons

"However, if you do not have Palo Alto in your environment, you are paying these additional services just for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, so it is not a cost-effective solution."
"Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth."
"It should support more mobile operating systems. That is one of the cons of their infrastructure right now."
"Cortex does not offer an on-premises solution. However, some customers would prefer not to be on the cloud. It would be ideal if it could offer something on-prem as well."
"The solution eats memory of the computer, unlike anything I've ever seen."
"The product's pricing could be better."
"I have faced some issues with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks; there is room for improvement in the sense that certain options prevent us from seeing and segregating data."
"Product might have some bugs."
"The product has major problems in almost every facet of setup and use including setup, configuration, lack of functionality, lack of stability, false positives, questionable reporting, inability to protect from randsomeware and poor technical support and development."
"Malwarebytes should improve its mobile compatibility."
"Notifications are lacking."
"The product could be improved in blocking malicious traffic, such as communication with known malicious IP addresses."
"In my opinion, it's not very scalable, at least the way we use it at this point in time."
"There are no built-in backups or integrated backup options, which could be an opportunity."
"There is room for improvement in the way it is deployed, in terms of being able to distribute it. Right now we have to get our hands on a machine to deploy it. It would be nice if there was an easier system."
"This solution reports far too many false positives!"
"Other vendors provide a lot of customization when it comes to integration, which every big organization requires. No big organization depends on one particular tool. Defender lacks that at this point."
"The solution has minimal customization options, especially compared to Mandiant, so we want to see more scope for customization. A single portal for customization would also be a welcome addition."
"Windows Firewall is integrated with Windows Defender. Over the last few days, I have had a problem with defining a wildcard on Windows Firewall."
"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 integration and effectiveness of email security could be better. It's already built-in to the solution and checks emails, scans the links they contain etc."
"It has not yet saved any time. It has only consumed my time for now because I need to learn and do the training and PoCs, but it is an investment for the future."
"The management console is something that can be improved."
"In terms of the architecture of the management infrastructure, we found that other technologies are more simple. Microsoft Defender could be simpler too."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is on a yearly-basis."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"The cost of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is $55 to $90 USD per endpoint per month."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"I would say that it's affordable. It costs much less than Sentinel One, CrowdStrike, or anything of that nature. But, at the same time, you are getting what you pay for. So I would say it's one of the best when you're comparing traditional NextGen AVs like Webroot that aren't the best in the bunch."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the product's pricing a seven."
"Yearly, it is around $50 per client."
"The licensing is per seat, with clients being a little less expensive than servers. If we need more licenses, we can accomplish that within a day. As Malwarebytes adds new features to their product, such as DNS filtering and a patching module, they want to charge us more even though we're a premium user, which isn't ideal."
"The platform pricing is competitive with other antivirus products."
"The cost may be something in the ballpark of $20-25 a year per computer."
"Malwarebytes is a cost-effective product."
"The licensing fee is a function of your Office 365 license. The feature set you get is a function of the license as well. There is probably an E2 version, an E3 version, and an E5 version. There are several versions, and not all features are the same. So, you might want to check what features you're expecting because you might get shocked. If you only have an E3 license, the capability isn't the same."
"Everybody would like to see a lower price on everything. The Slovenian market is basically an SME market with clients having up to 100 seat licenses, comprising 90% of the company. They're very price sensitive. So, the price could be cheaper."
"If we are acquiring everything in a single place, the front end becomes cost-effective."
"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."
"We pay a yearly license for Microsoft Defender. We also have a support contract with them."
"For me, the pricing is very good, but for management it's very expensive. Other solutions are less expensive. But when I present all the information and all the reports they say, "Well, it's expensive, but the cost-benefit is very good.""
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable and fair."
"I pay for it through the Windows Professional or Standard license. It is a one-time cost for me, and I use the same license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 Business22
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise96
 

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 Malwarebytes?
I really hate the automatic rebilling without officially confirming it with me. It's an annoyance and they should at ...
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes?
It takes up too much space when it's trying to run in the background.
What is your primary use case for Malwarebytes?
My primary use case is that it's protecting me against malware.
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
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Knutson Construction
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Malwarebytes Teams vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.