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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...
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Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
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)
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)
47th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.8%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 3.7%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec XDR is 0.6%, up from 0.2% 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 Networks4.8%
Microsoft Defender XDR3.7%
Symantec XDR0.6%
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.
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

"I recommend this solution to others because it is easy to manage, reliable, and overall good to use."
"From a single pane of glass, you can easily manage all of your endpoints."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"The most valuable feature is that you can select remote access of any machine for sandboxing."
"Cortex XDR is a very capable solution for protecting large networks and a lot of endpoints. It's very useful because the automation is very high, and if you combine it with the features on Palo Alto firewalls, it provides very strong protection."
"Traps has drastically reduced our endpoint attack surface via advanced detection capabilities, sandboxing of never before seen programs, and by drastically limiting where executables can launch in the first place."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks should be a stable solution."
"The user interface of the solution is sophisticated and straightforward."
"I like that it's stable. It's been stable for a long time, and Microsoft Defender has done a good job there."
"Among the most valuable features are the alert timeline, the alert story, which is pretty detailed. It gives us complete insight into what exactly happened on the endpoint. It doesn't just say, "Malware detected." It tells us what caused that malware to be detected and how it was detected. It gives us a complete timeline from beginning to end."
"For technical support, I would definitely give a rating of nine out of ten."
"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."
"The integration, visibility, vulnerability management, and device identification are valuable."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a good solution and easy to use."
"We are connected to Microsoft and have every laptop enrolled. This acts as an endpoint. The tool helps me check security and compliance. I can also check what a device is doing."
"Based on what I've seen with Microsoft Defender XDR and the large amount of threat data Microsoft has access to, I'm confident I would trust Microsoft Security to handle the majority of all our threats from any threat actor who's essentially putting our company at risk."
"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 tool needs to be improved in terms of integration and interface."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a very good product, but financially, it is very expensive, so the company should look into that area."
"Traps doesn't work with McAfee. You need to remove McAfee to install Traps. This is very common, and its nothing that should be an issue. Some antivirus engines recognize Traps as an threat component, so maybe they need to shake hands somewhere."
"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"In some cases, there are too many options for me, and it is a bit too hard to find some settings which I really need to implement."
"The solution needs better reports. I think they should let the customer go in and customize the reports."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve its user interface, which is more complicated compared to competitors such as SentinelOne."
"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 support team is not competent or responsive."
"I haven't really come across the incident Q assistant helping improve the efficiency of my SOC workflow."
"Microsoft support is not very good. You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain."
"Generally, antivirus products provide a central control to manage every device in terms of who is installing it or who is trying to disable it, but Microsoft doesn't have such a control center for the antivirus product it provides."
"Microsoft tends to provide too many features, which makes the solution prone to bugs."
"The tool gives inconsistent answers and crashes a lot."
"The logs could be better."
"I would like more of the features in Defender for 365 to be included in the smaller licenses. Even if I buy a small license and don't need everything, security shouldn't be a question. Security is one of the main aspects of all projects from our side, so it would be nice to have more features in the smaller licenses."
"The solution should have better reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. I have customers that have voiced that the solution is good for the value but if I want to sell more of the solution the price reduction would help."
"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 is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."
"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."
"Sometimes 365 Defender is expensive, but it can be moderate, depending on the organization's size and the license type. We're satisfied with the cost because it gives us a product that protects our entire environment with DLP. To compromise some cost, of course, we are to complete the most secure environment."
"I find the pricing to be quite competitive, especially considering its inclusion in our E5 subscription, which provides a comprehensive set of functionalities."
"Licensing is somewhat confusing, particularly when presenting our pitch decks to stakeholders and leveraging key features in premium SKUs, but we managed with some assistance from Microsoft."
"Defender XDR is included in the E5 license, but it's a bit too expensive."
"On average, we pay around 55 euros per user for the services and features we receive."
"The license cost for a year is approximately forty-four thousand, and this annual saving is a significant factor in our decision to switch."
"The most valuable licensing option is expensive, so pricing could be improved. Licensing options for this solution also need to be consolidated, because they frequently change."
"We've managed to navigate it effectively through our enterprise agreement, and Microsoft's academic discounts have proven to be quite generous."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
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...
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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.
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Find out what your peers are saying about SentinelOne, TrendAI, Wazuh and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: August 2026.
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