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Microsoft Defender XDR vs Symantec XDR comparison

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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)
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)
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 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 Symantec XDR is 0.6%, up from 0.3% 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%
Symantec XDR0.6%
Other91.2%
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 solution allows us to make investigations. Other XDR solutions also provide similar capabilities but for investigation, Cortex XDR is better."
"They did what they said, and this solution could apply to any scenario."
"We have a complete overview of all our PCs and it's very easy to handle and to use the interface. It has a lot of benefits for us."
"I recommend this solution to others because it is easy to manage, reliable, and overall good to use."
"After installing this solution, it identified, blocked, and provided the complete attack chain, which was very helpful."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks's ability to block sophisticated threats in real time is quite good and is on par with SentinelOne's."
"The product's most valuable features are massive user and feature intelligence exploit detection."
"These days it's machine-learning technology and behavior-based analytics features that make us more secure."
"Its most significant advantage lies in its affordability."
"The 'Incidents and Alerts' tab is a valuable feature where we can find triggered alerts."
"For me, the advanced hunting capabilities have been really great. It allowed querying the dataset with their own language, which is KQL or Kusto Query Language. That has allowed me to get much more insight into the events that have occurred. The whole power of 365 Defender is that you can get the whole story. It allows you to query an email-based activity and then correlate it with an endpoint-based activity."
"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."
"In our company,we have faced multiple attacks over the last few months, but none of them have been successful, and I think Microsoft Defender XDR has played a major role in it."
"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'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."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a stable solution."
"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 solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"Cortex does not offer an on-premises solution. However, some customers would prefer not to be on the cloud. It would be ideal if it could offer something on-prem as well."
"The dashboard could use some significant improvement, just making it more useful with more information. It has a limited amount of information right now. It is customizable, but I'd love to see a better out-of-box dashboard."
"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"The onboarding process could be better."
"For Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, if I had to point out improvements, I would say the UI is still somewhat difficult for beginners."
"The encryption is not up to the mark."
"The technical support from Microsoft Defender XDR has been disappointingly slow, to the point that I am considering not renewing my unified support contract."
"Their response time is okay, it works fine, but the time it takes to resolve escalated cases needs improvement."
"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."
"The price could be better. It'll also help if they can continuously update and upgrade the solution. Every day there's a new virus uploaded into the network, and we have to keep updating it to identify all these things."
"Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected."
"Intrusion detection and prevention would be great to have with 365 Defender."
"There are other SIEM solutions that are easier to use, mainly based on the creation of rules, use cases, and groups."
"The dashboard should be easier to use. There is also improvement needed in the reporting when it comes to exporting or scheduling reports."
"The solution should have better reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using the Community edition."
"The price was fine."
"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"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 a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"The cost of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is $55 to $90 USD per endpoint per month."
"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 365 Defender offers competitive pricing."
"It is fairly priced because we get complete integrated services with the E5 license."
"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."
"All I can say again is the E5 gives you all the capabilities that it offers. It also gives Office 365 and one terabyte of storage. All in all, the E5 license model makes sense. There are some people who say it's quite costly, but rather than paying different vendors, it makes sense to go all in with Microsoft if you've got that licensing. From that perspective, it's cost-effective, but I can't comment much on that."
"We've managed to navigate it effectively through our enterprise agreement, and Microsoft's academic discounts have proven to be quite generous."
"Microsoft is not competitive with the pricing of the solution. The competitors are able to offer lower discounts. The price of the solution is higher."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is included in our license."
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
7%
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
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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 SentinelOne, TrendAI, Palo Alto Networks and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.