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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs N-able EDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 8, 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 Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (6th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Agentic Endpoint Security (3rd)
N-able EDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
44th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.8%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 5.4%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able EDR is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint5.4%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.8%
N-able EDR0.7%
Other90.1%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

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.
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.
NM
Senior Operations Specialist at Tagit cc
Reporting effectiveness and advanced AI capabilities improve threat awareness while needing pricing simplification and licensing self-service
With pricing, they can improve by bundling their pricing because sometimes billing comes in a very long process. If they could bundle it as one solution and show the capabilities or features, they would be able to sell it more effectively, and as resellers, we could sell it to customers more easily. The technical support is responsive, but sometimes we experience limitations regarding the ability to add licensing. They could implement a self-service platform for assigning new licenses or ordering more. Currently, we depend on contacting someone who sends a new contract to sign through the process. They could change their licensing model, though I am not the right person to comment on functionality. On the reporting side, everything is covered.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to rapidly detect certain hardware files."
"It is a simple platform to use."
"The solution allows control over the user and his machine through Cortex XDR security policies."
"WildFire AI is the best option for this product."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"The initial setup isn't too bad."
"Since using Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, our MTTR has reduced, which means the mean time to resolve any ticket has been reduced."
"The stability is pretty good except for one or two cases, and based on the performance, it's been okay with pretty high performance, no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze."
"It integrates very well with all Windows workstations or other Microsoft Endpoint products. It also works quite well. So far, I have not had any issue that hasn't been sorted out. It doesn't use too many resources, so you don't have to install different things."
"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."
"It's absolutely free to use."
"The primary advantage is that you don't need to install it, because it's included in the Windows 10 delivery and is integrated as part of the Microsoft 365 suite."
"The most valuable aspect lies in its automation capabilities, particularly within security automation."
"Offers good protection."
"Microsoft Defender is always running. It is doing its job, so it is fine. I don't have any issues with the way it was implemented or how we are running it. We have been upgrading IT throughout the years, but there have been no issues."
"It's stable."
"We have been using this solution for quite some time, and the AI functionality is quite advanced; we are able to provide insights on different aspects and read the reports easily."
"The most valuable feature, which I can describe as the '360 vision' of the inventory device, provides a complete view of all the devices."
"It provides visibility and a storyline to track the virus or malware's activities, showing infected processes and changes made."
"The most valuable features are the rollback feature, it's important for us. The AI models and are good."
 

Cons

"The installation should be easier and the Palo Alto pre-sales and sales teams should have more information on the product because they don't know what they are selling."
"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"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."
"It's more focused on network communication. If a customer wants to increase the level of protection and start working with documents, it's impossible to integrate these features into the system. It's more of a communication-oriented system than a content security-oriented system."
"The solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"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."
"Limited remote connection."
"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around. In the hotel industry, we use a different type of data versus Oracle and SQL. By default, there are some policies which stop us from running properly. Because of this, the support level is also not that strong. We have to wait to get a results."
"I would like to see better integration with their other security products to give better visibility from a higher level."
"Sometimes, there are different skews. In a basic skew, they should have basic log analysis without the need to integrate with any third-party or SIEM solutions, like Sentinel. This would make it so much easier for users who don't have log collection or log analysis."
"I would like to see the next generation of the tool improved to work with other operating systems, like Linux."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by adding more security features."
"Some integration components for Mac should be added. We use both Windows 10 desktops and Mac desktops, but presently, the Mac component is still lagging a bit behind."
"The detection of viruses could be a little bit better."
"If they integrate with the EDR then it will benefit this solution."
"It is using a large space in your memory all the time."
"I would like to see them add support for both Android and iOS smartphones."
"I would rate the scalability as seven out of ten. The capability is useful. Concerning the license, if I add one more device without a license, it will automatically subscribe to a license. I do not appreciate that."
"We have a lot of false positives we see in the dashboard. I think this is the only problem we are facing."
"With pricing, they can improve by bundling their pricing because sometimes billing comes in a very long process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"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."
"It's the most expensive solution, but features-wise, it's quite strong. It's very good for protection, so the results are very good in the case of protection. I would rate it a two out of ten in terms of pricing."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"The product is free of charge and comes integrated into Windows."
"Licensing models of Microsoft are renowned for being complex. We just purchased the whole E5 stack. With E5 licenses for users, we get access to a bunch of features that are not just related to security. I would rate them a three out of five in terms of pricing."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is more affordable compared to some other endpoint solutions."
"The cost is high, compared to other products in the market, if you look at it as a separate product. If you look at the cost where it is part of a bundle, the cost is okay."
"We have the E5 security license, and the solution comes with that."
"Because Microsoft Defender comes as an add-on, it can be a bit expensive if you're trying to buying it separately. Another option is to upgrade, but the enterprise licenses for Microsoft can also be quite a bit pricey. Overall, the cost of Microsoft Defender compared to that of other endpoint detection solutions is slightly higher."
"It is affordable and comes in the Office 365 bundle."
"We have an enterprise agreement so from my perspective, this is a product that ships with Windows and it is not priced standalone."
"The pricing is average."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Transportation Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise97
No data available
 

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,...
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...
What needs improvement with N-able EDR?
With pricing, they can improve by bundling their pricing because sometimes billing comes in a very long process. If t...
What is your primary use case for N-able EDR?
We are using N-able EDR, but I think Sophos makes sense because of the environment we operate in. The localization an...
What advice do you have for others considering N-able EDR?
I am more focused on operations and procurement. The decision to use this solution was made before I joined the compa...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. N-able EDR and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.