Microsoft Defender XDR vs Symantec XDR comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category. Microsoft is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.4, while Broadcom is ranked #51. Microsoft holds a 3.8% mindshare in XDR, compared to Broadcom’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender XDR and Symantec XDR based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about SentinelOne, CrowdStrike, TrendAI and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR).

To learn more, read our detailed Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Report (Updated: July 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

July 2026

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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...

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.5%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 3.8%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec XDR is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks	4.5%
Microsoft Defender XDR	3.8%
Symantec XDR	0.5%
Other	91.2%

Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH

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.

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reviewer2812758

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.

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BILALRAZA

Cyber Security Consultant at I(TS)² Saudi Arabia

A scalable and stable solution with straightforward deployment

We can generate maps from the environment. For example, suppose there is a virus that has a zero-day attack and is publicly unknown. We can block that and keep it away from the network so it is not further replicated. It also has custom white and black lists. We can add a good reputation on both lists and use the sonar technology for Symantec and the online network for advanced reports.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"After deploying Traps, we saw the performance of the network improve by 65 to 70 percent."

"Previously, we had to install endpoint protection per machine and then scan and update, but Cortex XDR basically does that centrally and predictably, so we have more time to do day-to-day work rather than spend time chasing those endpoints."

"Cortex is the best solution for avoiding security breaches, malware attacks, and other kinds of security issues."

"Since they've done their most recent update, the ease to isolate endpoints is valuable. If we find one where there is a virus on it, we can easily isolate it. We don't even have to contact the user. We don't have to manually take them off the network. We can easily isolate them."

"The initial setup isn't too bad."

"The dashboard is customizable."

"I have found the solution to be very easy in respect of the integration and configurable."

"It's a nice product that's stable and scalable."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pros

"I like 365 Defender's advanced threat hunting. The dashboard is user-friendly with templates for site policies, etc. The most important use case is evaluating the risk links and applications."

"Microsoft 365 Defender is a good solution and easy to use."

"The feature of Microsoft Defender XDR that I preferred the most traditionally was its focus on endpoint protection, but now identity is right up there with endpoint security. Identity is important because different compromises start at the identity level. This allows us to understand what actions are being taken, who is doing them, and whether it is actually them."

"We are able to consolidate licences and make use of many Microsoft products using this solution, and if we have any Microsoft customers, we encourage them to use this solution for enterprise defence."

"It's a great threat intelligence source for us, providing alerts for things it detects on the network and on the machines. We've used it often when there is a potential incident to see what was done on a computer. That works quite nicely because you can see everything that the user has done..."

"We can use Defender to block and monitor for security purposes without needing multiple other products to do different tasks."

"The most valuable feature is probably the aggregation and correlation of the different telemetry points with Defender for Identity, Defender for Endpoint, and Defender for Cloud Apps. All of these various things are part of that portal. We've wanted that single pane of glass for years."

"The solution is well integrated with applications. It is easy to maintain and administer."

More Microsoft Defender XDR pros

"You can advise the solution and protect your environment."

"We can block a virus that has a zero-day attack and is publicly unknown and keep it away from the network so it is not further replicated."

Cons

"Whenever the tool releases a new version when deploying the product across the organization, I feel like there are some disturbances in the CPU usage after upgrading the tool to the latest version."

"In terms of areas of improvement, we have not completed our review of the product. We're also looking at other products. So, it's a little bit hard to tell what could be different because we have not completed the review of this product, but based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by adding a sandbox feature to better compete with their competitors which have it."

"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."

"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."

"It would be better if they could educate the customers more. Some sort of seminars and roadshows will help educate the customers and show what the product can do. The price could be better. It would also help if they had a team for deployment and support."

"It tends to do 99.9% of things. The only thing I'd like is single sign-on authentication into their cloud platform so that my users can be properly authenticated against it."

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is not only pricey; it is extremely expensive."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks cons

"These days, in the security industry, there is a buzzword called zero trust. I personally have not seen much evidence of how Defender can enhance the story of Zero Trust for enterprises."

"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."

"At times, when we have an incident email and we click on the link for that incident, it opens a pop-up, but there is nothing. It has happened a couple of times."

"When we do investigations, it would be better if Microsoft could populate the host dashboard more. When we open any host for investigation, we want the entire timeline of what is happening on the host, including all the users logging in, their hardware, Windows version, etc."

"Microsoft frequently changes the names of its products, sometimes even renaming entire portals or features."

"What could be improved in Microsoft 365 Defender is its licensing, e.g. it should be more consolidated and would be good if it has some optimizations. Improving the alerts and notifications, in terms of adding more details, would also be good for this solution."

"I haven't really come across the incident Q assistant helping improve the efficiency of my SOC workflow."

"The only problem I find is that the use cases are built-in. There is no template available that you can modify according to your organization's standards. What they give is very generic, the market standard, but that might not be applicable to every organization."

More Microsoft Defender XDR cons

"The solution should have better reporting."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."

"It is "expensive" and flexible."

"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."

"The solution has one subscription for endpoint protection and one subscription for detection and response. The two licenses combined give you the BRO version."

"The price of the product is not very economical."

"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."

"Licensing for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR can be costly, especially when it comes to a hundred users. A license is required for each user, and the subscription must be renewed on a yearly basis."

"The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

"I would like to have more security features in the lower licenses because not every customer is able to buy E5 licenses. The bundling isn't always easy for our customers to understand. Compared to other tools, it's a good price."

"The functionality is fantastic, but for medium and small-sized companies it's overpriced. It would be better if it were a little bit cheaper."

"365 Defender can get expensive because you pay per gigabyte of data ingested. On the other hand, much of the data available in the other Microsoft security solutions are made available relatively cheaply—sometimes at cost or for free. Integrating only a limited set of third-party solutions with Sentinel would be cost-effective. It's much more affordable if companies only have Microsoft stuff."

"It is 15 dollars per server per month. It is worth it, but it can be costly. It depends on the company's size."

"I believe the pricing is fair and acceptable. I consider it to be reasonable and satisfactory."

"I believe that the pricing of the licensing is fair."

"Microsoft Defender falls within a mid-tier price range compared to other security solutions."

"It has consistently offered highly appealing academic pricing, with distinct rates for higher education and general educational purposes."

More Microsoft Defender XDR pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	54

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	28
Large Enterprise	41

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. ...

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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...

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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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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,...

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 13% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 5% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

Cortex XSIAM vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 3% of the time

Trellix Endpoint Security Platform vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 3% of the time

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Competitors

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 8% of the time

Wazuh vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 6% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 4% of the time

Cybereason XDR vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Defender XDR Competitors

Wazuh vs Symantec XDR

Compared 39% of the time

Trellix Endpoint Security Platform vs Symantec XDR

Compared 17% of the time

Anomali vs Symantec XDR

Compared 8% of the time

More Symantec XDR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

August 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender XDR

July 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

July 2026

Download Symantec XDR product report

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender

No data available

Overview

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks provides advanced threat detection with AI-driven endpoint protection and seamless integration, ensuring multi-layered security and automatic threat response.

Cortex XDR is designed to safeguard endpoints against malware and suspicious activities. It offers advanced threat detection and response capabilities using behavioral analysis, AI, and machine learning. It seamlessly integrates with security infrastructures, providing endpoint security, firewall integration, and enhanced visibility in both cloud-based and on-premises environments.

What are the key features of Cortex XDR?

Advanced Threat Detection: Uses AI and machine learning for proactive threat identification.
Multi-layered Security: Combines various security measures for comprehensive protection.
Endpoint Protection: Safeguards against malware and exploits.
Behavioral Analysis: Monitors suspicious activity for early detection.
Automatic Threat Response: Automates responses to neutralize threats.

What benefits should users expect?

Ease of Use: Simplifies security management with intuitive design.
Resource Efficiency: Minimizes impact on system resources.
Integration Capabilities: Works well with existing security setups.
Reduced Analyst Workload: Automates processes to decrease manual intervention.

Organizations in diverse sectors deploy Cortex XDR to protect against malware, leveraging its advanced threat detection capabilities. Its integration with existing security infrastructures appeals to those seeking comprehensive protection in both cloud and on-premises environments, providing enhanced visibility and threat intelligence.

Palo Alto Networks

Microsoft Defender XDR is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect against threats in the Microsoft 365 environment.

It offers robust security measures, comprehensive threat detection capabilities, and an efficient incident response system. With seamless integration with other Microsoft products and a user-friendly interface, it simplifies security management tasks.

Users have found it effective in detecting and preventing various types of attacks, such as phishing attempts, malware infections, and data breaches.

Watch the Microsoft demo video here: Microsoft Defender XDR demo video.

Microsoft

Symantec XDR offers comprehensive threat detection and response, leveraging advanced analytics and threat intelligence to secure enterprise environments effectively, catering to complex security challenges.

By integrating network, endpoint, and email data, Symantec XDR provides a unified approach to threat detection and investigation. It enhances response capabilities with automated actions, reducing response times. The adaptive architecture ensures scalability, making it suitable for large enterprises. With a focus on identifying sophisticated threats, it enables security teams to maintain a proactive defense posture.

What are the key features of Symantec XDR?

Unified Data Collection: Aggregates data from multiple sources for comprehensive threat visibility.
Advanced Analytics: Utilizes AI and machine learning to detect and prioritize threats.
Automated Response: Initiates pre-defined actions to contain and mitigate threats swiftly.
Scalable Architecture: Adapts to growing data volumes without performance degradation.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Threat Detection: Increases the accuracy and speed of detecting threats.
Reduced Response Time: Enables swift action to minimize potential impact.
Enhanced Security Posture: Ensures a continuously adaptive security environment.
Cost Efficiency: Lowers the overall cost of threat management and remediation.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, where data integrity and privacy are critical, Symantec XDR is effectively implemented to streamline security operations, enabling organizations to quickly detect and respond to security incidents, ensuring compliance with strict regulatory requirements.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank

Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

July 2026

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