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Microsoft Defender XDR vs ReliaQuest GreyMatter comparison

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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 Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (9th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
ReliaQuest GreyMatter
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
32nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Digital Risk Protection (11th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.7%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 3.5%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ReliaQuest GreyMatter is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.7%
Microsoft Defender XDR3.5%
ReliaQuest GreyMatter0.9%
Other90.9%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

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.
reviewer2812758 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infosec at a government with 10,001+ employees
Integrated defenses have unified threat hunting, phishing simulations, and identity investigations
I appreciate Microsoft Defender XDR's MDE, Microsoft Defender tool, which has Attack Simulator. Instead of doing a phishing campaign and getting a separate tool, Microsoft Defender XDR does it all. These features of Microsoft Defender XDR have helped us conduct a phishing campaign quarterly, which has been beneficial. I also appreciate the fact that it has Defender for Office integrated, Defender for Identity, and everything integrated together. I would describe the process of using Microsoft Defender XDR to prioritize incidents in my security operations as quite decent. I appreciate the automatic alerting system where any incidents or alerts we receive come directly to our email. From there, we can open the email, go directly to Microsoft Defender XDR, and start our investigations and remediations. I perceive the integration of security and identity access management in Microsoft Defender XDR as affecting my identity protection strategies very well because it is well integrated with Purview, integrated well with Entra ID, and integrated well with Exchange. I especially appreciate MDO, the Office product. If anything happens and I want to conduct an investigation, it takes me directly to Exchange, where I can also investigate any emails or phishing incidents. Instead of going to different portals, everything can be done from Microsoft Defender XDR. If necessary for further investigation, Microsoft Defender XDR then directs me to that environment. I would assess the integration of AI in guiding security actions within Microsoft Defender XDR as quite positive. Recently, Security Copilot went big, and it is beneficial that I can use that, especially to write KQL. I can do threat hunting features and intelligence all within using Microsoft's Security Copilot. It also has a nice AI feature for threat hunting. I know that all the Defender logs go to Sentinel, and I can pull it up from Microsoft Defender XDR or from Sentinel. The fact that I can actually do all that within Microsoft Defender XDR is a nice feature. In the top module, I can do threat lookups, and I can actually type KQLs in Microsoft Defender XDR and look up incidents. Predictive shielding has had a nice impact on my proactive security measures. It is beneficial that it has, similar to Entra ID, a secure score. For me to improve the product, the secure score helps me out. If I rate it from highest to lowest, I can see what things I can improve. Secure score helps me see what areas I can improve in Microsoft Defender XDR to increase my score and bring it to 80 or more. Knowing Microsoft Defender XDR from using it since 2019, before COVID days, I know that they have improved significantly. It is much more user-friendly and has a very nice vulnerability feature that I find handy and useful. The fact that this feature integrates into Intune is also very decent.
Omkar Korulkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Centralized visibility has improved SOC investigations and supports faster, more accurate incident response
I think ReliaQuest GreyMatter could be improved further in a few areas. First, I want to see more flexibility in dashboard customization so analysts can configure views based on their roles and investigation requirements. Second, improving alert correlation accuracy and reducing overall false positive rates would help analysts focus on genuine possible threats rather than spending time validating repetitive low-priority alerts or false positives. Third, more detailed investigation timelines, better reporting capabilities, and simpler investigation integration configuration would make the platform more effective. I suggest continuously improving automation workflows to reduce repetitive manual tasks while allowing analysts to maintain control over critical response actions. Overall, I think these enhancements can make the platform more user-friendly and improve the efficiency of SOC operations. One additional improvement would be enhancing the investigation experience by providing more detailed context directly within the alert. For example, having a clear incident timeline, related alerts, historical activity, and threat intelligence information available in one place would make investigations easier. I believe these improvements would make day-to-day SOC operations smoother and allow analysts to focus more on proactive threat hunting and other complex investigations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability of the solution is very good. We have about 100 users on it right now, and we use it twice a week."
"Once you become familiar with it, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a more powerful tool and I would say that I prefer it over MDE because it is a stronger tool for me."
"The information the dashboard provides is very clear."
"The scalability of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very good."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to rapidly detect certain hardware files."
"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 most valuable features are incident creation, policy-based protection, IP whitelisting, and device encryption. These are beneficial for endpoint and server security."
"Everything is organized straightforwardly; all the incidents are clearly described and everything you need is essentially in one menu and one UI interface, which is quite beneficial for me and also for the customer."
"The biggest return on investment when using Microsoft Defender XDR for me is saving time for the most part."
"Setting up Microsoft 365 Defender is easy. It's a user-friendly solution that provides threat protection. It has good stability and scalability."
"I like Defender XDR's reports and alerts. They give you updates about the latest hotfixes and zero-day vulnerabilities, which gives me all the information I need to maintain my servers."
"The ability to hunt that IM data set or the identity data set at the same time is valuable. As incident response professionals, we are very used to EDRs and having device process registry telemetry, but a lot of times, we do not have that identity data right there with us, so we have to go search for it in some other silo. Being able to cross-correlate via both datasets at the same time is something that we can only do in Def"
"The best feature is probably the alert generation. When I do a security reset, the other session triggers instantly from the Defender console, and I can work on it. The policies are three times, but they are also ready to install it."
"It's a very scalable tool that can be used in a very small environment or in a very large environment. Everything can be managed from a simple dashboard and can be scaled up or down depending on the customer's environment."
"The ability to isolate and address viruses is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender XDR."
"The most valuable feature is the DLP because that's where we can have an added data protection layer and extend it not just to emails but to the documents that users are working on. We can make sure that sensitive data is tagged and flagged if unauthorized parties are using it."
"One of the best features that ReliaQuest GreyMatter offers is the ability to bring together security tools and data that support threat investigation, detection, and response."
"ReliaQuest GreyMatter saves around 60% of time or resources."
"ReliaQuest GreyMatter has helped us to reduce security incidents by 89%, which is a significant amount of incidents we have seen."
 

Cons

"Based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"The downsides of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks are that in many incidents, when I enter the causality chain, there are numerous logs."
"I would like to see improvement in the tool's user interface, particularly in the area of managing alerts and providing more reporting capabilities."
"It takes time to scan the servers and devices."
"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is not only pricey; it is extremely expensive."
"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."
"This product has not improved my organization - in fact, we are in the process of moving back to another product as a result of Cortex's horrible impact on system performance."
"The documentation on their website is somewhat outdated and doesn't show properly. I wanted to try a query in Microsoft Defender 365. When I opened the related documentation from the security blog on the Microsoft website, the figures were not showing. It was difficult to understand the article without having the figures. The figures were there in the article, but they were not getting loaded, which made the article obsolete."
"There should be better information for experts on features in the solution. What I see when reading about features in Microsoft 365 Defender is that it is always general information. If Microsoft could go deeper into details for the experts about how to use the tools, usage of it would be more familiar and it would be easier to use."
"365 Defender has multiple subsets, including Defender for Cloud Apps. When integrating Defender for Cloud Apps with apps on third-party cloud platforms like AWS or GCP, there are limitations on our ability to control user activities. If Microsoft added more control over third-party products, that would be a game-changer and help us quite a lot."
"At times, there may be delays in the execution of certain actions and their effects."
"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."
"Microsoft 365 Defender does not have a unique package with emerging endpoint security technologies, such as EDR and XDR."
"The data recovery and backup could be improved."
"The dashboards could be improved."
"Areas that have room for improvement include user interface and integration."
"ReliaQuest GreyMatter is stable to a certain extent, but there is still some room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."
"I feel it is fairly priced."
"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."
"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 is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"365 Defender is billed per account. I don't know the exact price, but my supervisor told me that Microsoft Defender is cheaper than the alternatives. It's bundled, so you get all the features in one place."
"Defender plan 1 is tenant-wise, and Defender plan 2 is per-user, which makes it more expensive. To have certain features, you would need to purchase the E5 license. For all of the capabilities that the tool provides, the price, though it can be high, is fair."
"Its licensing and pricing are handled by someone else. My role is limited to incidents or issues with the portal, but you get what you pay for. It is worth the cost."
"It is fairly priced because we get complete integrated services with the E5 license."
"The solution is too expensive."
"For Defender, they have Endpoint Plan 1 and Endpoint Plan 2, but I don't know on what basis they have classified Endpoint Plan 1 and Plan 2, but it has given me enough pain to pick and design Endpoint Plan 1 or Endpoint Plan 2 for my organization. In fact, we are still struggling with it. Too many SKUs are confusing. There should not be too many SKUs, and they shouldn't charge for every new feature."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is already included in our Office 365 licensing. It is better because we're saving money by using it."
"I find the pricing to be quite competitive, especially considering its inclusion in our E5 subscription, which provides a comprehensive set of functionalities."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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 Business46
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise41
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,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender XDR is that we are on an E5 license,...
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
From my perspective, Microsoft Defender XDR can be improved with better visibility in certain areas where I can trigg...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft 365 Defender?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender XDR are telemetry, advanced hunting, and the ability to perform host isolati...
What needs improvement with ReliaQuest GreyMatter?
Areas that have room for improvement include user interface and integration.
What is your primary use case for ReliaQuest GreyMatter?
I use ReliaQuest GreyMatter for detection and response, XDR, and SIEM. The best features I like about GreyMatter the ...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender XDR vs. ReliaQuest GreyMatter and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
921,148 professionals have used our research since 2012.