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Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

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 Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Bitdefender GravityZone Ext...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
30th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (12th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (29th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.4%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.0%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.0%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.4%
Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR)0.8%
Other89.8%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

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.
reviewer2165952 - PeerSpot reviewer
Company Advisor
Automated protection has reduced our management time and keeps all client environments consistently secure
Reporting in Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) could be improved. It has some reporting in it, but it's a little cumbersome to work with, so the reporting that is there could be improved. The analytics dashboards of Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) are quite useful, and they are nice in that we can see an overview very quickly and drill down into specific issues or specific clients. The dashboards are quite good, though it would be nice if we had the same with automated reports. It would be much more useful for us to have that via email or having a report. The only downside that we find is that the product is a little bit slow.
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The information the dashboard provides is very clear."
"The most valuable features of this product are the management capabilities, which allow an IT organization to get quite a good picture of attempted cyber attacks, and its out-of-the-box investigation capabilities."
"The protection offered by this product is good, as is the endpoint reporting."
"They have a new GUI which is just fantastic."
"Stability is one of the features we like the most."
"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."
"We've had a significant increase in blocking with a decrease in false positives, because it's looking at how the files work, not just a list of files that it's been told to look for."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Plus is highly stable."
"I find Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Plus to be a pretty good solution for the mid-level market, specifically for organizations with up to two hundred fifty users. I like that it is an averagely priced solution. It also has a straightforward installation that can be completed within three to five minutes. Its technical support is also good enough."
"We moved from Sophos antivirus to Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR), and ever since then, we've been very happy with the product."
"The best features in the product, as a reseller, are the integrated SOC; integration with a SOC is one of the advantages."
"We are using Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Plus for the threat protection and security of our network."
"The threat detection rates are exceptionally good, better than most of the competition."
"The best thing about Bitdefender is that it has got top-notch features and it is not tied to specific countries like some other antivirus tools."
"The product is easy to use."
"Overall, I recommend Microsoft Defender for Endpoint due to its features and capabilities, which cover more loopholes than other EDR solutions."
"What I like most is the protection against phishing emails and anti-spam."
"This is the best feature of having OneDrive backup on the fly and recovery on the fly."
"Threat intelligence is one of the most valuable features in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint."
"I have used it enough to be sure that I could recommend it for home use on a PC."
"It provides peace of mind with really good pricing."
"There is no licensing fee, as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes included with the Windows license."
"The biggest benefit to Windows Defender is that it is built-in to the operating system by Microsoft."
 

Cons

"The installation should be easier and the Palo Alto pre-sales and sales teams should have more information on the product because they don't know what they are selling."
"Impact on system performance is horrible, adding a lot of delays for users."
"We have found that there are times Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks does not detect some of the viruses, we have to use another protection solution called Kaspersky."
"A little bit more automation would be nice."
"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."
"There is also no recovery feature; if some endpoint is under attack there must be the possibility of recovering it or restoring it to a normal state."
"I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response). Then it would work well with SIEM Response."
"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"The solution seems to be pretty amateur for an EDR solution, and it should be more in sync in terms of features, with solutions such as FireEye and SentinelOne."
"The solution must improve its management features."
"I would like automatic issue fixing for users without needing to physically open the PC. I'd prefer updates and fixes from the cloud to avoid headaches and save time."
"Reporting in Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) could be improved."
"The solution seems to be pretty amateur for an EDR solution, and it should be more in sync in terms of features, with solutions such as FireEye and SentinelOne."
"Detection and response is a disadvantage that could be improved."
"Some customers would like additional features that aren't available through the current GravityZone platform."
"Some customers would like additional features that aren't available through the current GravityZone platform. Some feedback has been about the deletion of other software not going smoothly during the installation of Bitdefender, particularly the removal of previous software like Sophos."
"More hooks and more reporting would be beneficial. More proactive reporting would be ideal."
"I would like to see fewer pop messages and alerts. It's disturbing when you have that many alerts."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration."
"The automation could be simpler on the mitigation side. It has a learning curve. Otherwise, it's pretty easy."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration."
"Microsoft support could be more knowledgeable."
"I would like to see integrations with other products, such as Spunk and other CM solutions."
"Microsoft Windows Defender doesn't have a game mode."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"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."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."
"In terms of the cost Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very expensive because we are a Mexican company and when you translate dollars to pesos the cost is very high. The solution is very expensive for Mexican companies. I understand that they have international prices, but I do not think it offsets the price enough for many companies in countries, such as Mexico. The amount it is reduced is not a massive percentage."
"This is an expensive solution."
"We have purchased licenses for the use of Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Plus. The price of the solution is reasonable but could be better."
"Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Plus is pretty average, meaning it's not cheaper, but it's pretty good. It has average pricing."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable and fair."
"The price of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is reasonable. Other solutions are more expensive, such as ClowdStrike."
"Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs."
"We have an enterprise agreement so from my perspective, this is a product that ships with Windows and it is not priced standalone."
"We pay a yearly license for Microsoft Defender. We also have a support contract with them."
"The solution is included with Microsoft Windows."
"It is affordable and comes in the Office 365 bundle."
"Everybody would like to see a lower price on everything. The Slovenian market is basically an SME market with clients having up to 100 seat licenses, comprising 90% of the company. They're very price sensitive. So, the price could be cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Construction Company
12%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise48
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise95
 

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 Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Plus?
The pricing and licensing of Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is reasonable. We moved fr...
What needs improvement with Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Plus?
Reporting in Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) could be improved. It has some reporting i...
What is your primary use case for Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra Plus?
Our customers typically use Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) primarily as an antivirus s...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior sol...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never pu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint?
We have been discussing pricing, setup cost, and licensing, and we are currently on an E3. We are discussing going to...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
GravityZone Ultra Plus
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Archdiocese, Northstar, SeSa, W&W Informatik, Yamaha Motor Europe
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Bitdefender GravityZone Extended Detection and Response (XDR) vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.