No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Symantec XDR comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
5th
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)
Symantec XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
50th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.6%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 4.0%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec XDR is 0.4%, 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
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.6%
Microsoft Defender XDR4.0%
Symantec XDR0.4%
Other91.0%
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.
BR
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is its machine-learning capabilities. Additionally, there is full integration with other solutions."
"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 detected stuff that other things wouldn't detect."
"I recognize that Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is one of the best products in its category regarding capabilities."
"My advice for others looking into using Cortex is that it is very easy to use and very useful for the customer environment, whether it's a public or private one."
"After deploying Traps, we saw the performance of the network improve by 65 to 70 percent."
"The solution doesn't need a high level of technical training."
"Cortex XDR features advanced threat detection capabilities."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a stable solution."
"Microsoft Defender's most critical component is its CASB solution. It has many built-in policies that can improve your organization's cloud security posture. It's effective regardless of where your users are, which is critical because most users are working from home. It's cloud-based, so nothing is on-premise."
"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."
"Within advanced threat hunting, the tables that have already been defined by Microsoft are helpful. In the advanced threat hunting tab, there were different tables, and one of the tables was related to device info, device alert, and device events. That was very helpful. Another feature that I liked but didn't have access to was deep analysis."
"The native capabilities are quite good as it slips in seamlessly as part of our integration and gives a lot of flexibility in terms of configuration and customization as per the business requirements."
"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."
"We can use Defender to block and monitor for security purposes without needing multiple other products to do different tasks."
"Microsoft Sentinel enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem, investigate threats, and respond from one place, which has reduced our time to detection and time to response by about 20 percent."
"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

"The technical support is not very good. I find the process difficult."
"The solution lags to the real-time scenarios here and there."
"A better pricing plan would make this product more competitive."
"The MAC agent is not as robust feature-wise as the PC version."
"In general, the price could be more competitive."
"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."
"Managing the product should be easier."
"Cortex XDR should have a lightweight agent, and the agent size should not be heavy."
"I do think that maybe having a feature within my organization where there are three different domains within which we have to operate would be helpful, as there is currently no unified view within the domains."
"There's still some more work to be done there. Additionally, the limited terminal live access an analyst has is very restricted."
"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."
"Troubleshooting in Microsoft 365 Defender can be inefficient."
"There are still some components, such as vulnerability management within the vendor product, where improved integration would be beneficial."
"The data recovery and backup could be improved."
"The interface could be improved. For example, if you want to do a phishing simulation for your employees, it can take a while to figure out what to do. The interface is a bit messy and could be updated. It isn't too bad, but doing some things can be a long process."
"Every now and then, Microsoft Defender XDR seems to go through and aggregates almost a week's worth of incidents and wraps them up, indicating a huge problem."
"The solution should have better reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"Microsoft should provide lower-level licensing options. They should do it in such a way that even an individual could purchase a license, and it should be entirely flexible."
"I believe the pricing is fair and acceptable. I consider it to be reasonable and satisfactory."
"There are no issues with pricing, but sometimes, the clarity in licensing is a concern."
"Defender XDR is included in the E5 license, but it's a bit too expensive."
"It is fairly priced because we get complete integrated services with the E5 license."
"I believe that the pricing of the licensing is fair."
"We've managed to navigate it effectively through our enterprise agreement, and Microsoft's academic discounts have proven to be quite generous."
"We have a lot of problems in Latin America regarding the price of Microsoft 365 Defender, because the relationship between dollars and the money of the different countries, it's is a lot. Many customers that have small businesses say that they would like the solution but it is too expensive. However, large companies do not find the cost an issue."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions are best for your needs.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise52
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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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 CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, TrendAI and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.