Microsoft Defender XDR vs Symantec XDR comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.4, while Broadcom is ranked #45. Microsoft holds a 4.7% 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 CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, TrendAI and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR).

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

Buyer's Guide

Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

April 2026

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Helped 886,349 peers since 2012

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 April 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.9%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 4.7%, down from 6.5% 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 (%)
Microsoft Defender XDR	4.7%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks	4.9%
Symantec XDR	0.5%
Other	89.9%

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.

Read full review

Kunle Oluwadiya

House security operator at Cypress Creek Renewables

Advanced threat hunting saves significant time in tracking and responding to incidents

Microsoft Defender XDR could be improved with a lower price. My main suggestion would essentially be what Copilot is providing, which is a single pane of glass, so I don't have to go to different windows. That's just a workflow consideration for me. It would be great to have all the information centralized into one particular data app. If I need to open up extra ones, I can, however, I would appreciate a future where everything I need is right there on one single pane of glass. Beyond that, there's really nothing else I see that I would want Microsoft to improve.

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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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

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

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks saves time in various ways, although the user interface is fairly standard."

"Cortex XDR lets us manage several clients from the same console, and its endpoint defense is more advanced than traditional antivirus."

"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."

"Stability is one of the features we like the most."

"The good thing about the product is that it's always scanning."

"I don't have to do much monitoring with it; I don't have to have anybody manually looking at this, it gives us reports, and it lets us know if something needs to be addressed, and we can easily address it."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pros

"As a reseller and partner, the advantages of Microsoft Defender XDR are numerous; I have stopped many threats for many organizations using Defender alone, and I have saved significant IT management time by avoiding manual updates and manual work."

"Another noteworthy feature that I find appealing in Microsoft Defender is the credit-backed simulation. This feature enables organizations to train their users on effectively responding to phishing emails through a simulated training environment."

"In Microsoft 365 vendor products, monitoring and connectivity across all Microsoft and third-party connectors enable viewing of all activity within those environments."

"Instead of an hour, it takes five or 10 minutes now; it's a lifesaver for me and keeps my clients from being threatened and attacked every day."

"Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable."

"The integration between all the Defender products is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable features are spam filtering, attachment filtering, and antivirus protection."

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

More Microsoft Defender XDR pros

"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."

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

Cons

"This is a very costly product."

"I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response). Then it would work well with SIEM Response."

"The encryption is not up to the mark."

"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by providing hard disk encryption."

"In reporting they should have a customizable dashboard due to the fact that C-level people don't like reporting to the IT department. They prefer to have a real-time dashboard. That kind of dashboard needs to have various customizations."

"Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR does not detect malicious activity like in other anti-virus solutions like Trend Micro and Windows with Cisco."

"When it comes to core analysis, and security analysis, Cortex needs to provide more information."

"The solution should add unwanted malicious hash values to a block list so that whenever the action is triggered, it will automatically prevent the malicious content."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks cons

"The mobile app support for Android and iOS is difficult and needs improvement."

"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."

"For Microsoft Defender XDR, there is currently no ability to reset passwords for on-premises accounts, which is a key challenge."

"The console is missing some features that would be helpful for a managed services provider, like device and user management."

"The data recovery and backup could be improved."

"The support could be more knowledgable to improve their offering."

"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."

"I personally have not seen much evidence of how Defender can enhance the story of zero trust for enterprises."

More Microsoft Defender XDR cons

"The solution should have better reporting."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."

"It has a yearly renewal."

"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."

"This is an expensive solution."

"I am using the Community edition."

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

"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."

"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

"Purchasing Microsoft Defender XDR as part of a Microsoft 365 bundle can be cost-effective, but acquiring it as a standalone product may be more expensive."

"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."

"While Microsoft Defender XDR carries a higher cost, its ease of use compared to Defender may justify the investment."

"They have moved from a licensing model to pay-per-use... The question is: What happens if, for any reason, there's not enough budget to accept this model? That could be a great problem."

"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."

"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."

"We've managed to navigate it effectively through our enterprise agreement, and Microsoft's academic discounts have proven to be quite generous."

"The price could be better. Normally, the costs depend on the country you're located in for the license. When we were in the initial stage, we went with the E5 license they call premium standard. It cost us around $5.20 per month for four users."

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

13%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	44
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	48

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	40

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. ...

See all answers

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 do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?

Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and p...

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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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Comparisons

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 8% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 6% 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 4% of the time

TrendAI Vision One vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 2% of the time

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Competitors

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 10% 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

Microsoft Sentinel vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Defender XDR Competitors

Wazuh vs Symantec XDR

Compared 40% of the time

Trellix Endpoint Security Platform vs Symantec XDR

Compared 31% of the time

More Symantec XDR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

April 2026

Download Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender XDR

March 2026

Download Microsoft Defender XDR product report

Buyer's Guide

Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

April 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 Enterprise Security Products are now part of Broadcom. The consumer division of Symantec Corp. is now NortonLifeLock Inc. -- a standalone company dedicated to consumer cyber safety.

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)

April 2026

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