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BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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 Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
BlackBerry Cylance Cybersec...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.8%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.5%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.5%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.8%
BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity1.6%
Other88.1%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

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.
Sooraj Makkancherrry - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Operations Manager at Philips
Doesn't have daily updates, which is important for healthcare IT
I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we contact support, they tell us to update the latest agent, but we can't do that immediately due to medical device protocols and validation testing. I wish support would try to understand our issues better instead of giving this standard response. The machine learning feature they use often tells us to upgrade the agent or add things to the exclusion list, which isn't unacceptable. It's a very good and new technology as a tool and antivirus. But sometimes, it doesn't work properly with our medical devices and products, quarantining files it shouldn't even after we add them to exclusions. This is tricky for us.
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

"Threat identification and detection are the most valuable features of this solution."
"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."
"The live terminal is probably the best thing ever. It gives you the access to get straight onto any machine."
"Their XDR agent and their behavioral indicators of compromise (BIOC) are pretty nice. Their managed threat hunting is also pretty nice. They also have WildFire, which is a service for actively looking for malware. It's quite useful."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the user interface."
"We think that this product will help us grow, as it meets our needs currently and we can grow with it over time."
"It'll not slow down your system when compared to others."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to rapidly detect certain hardware files."
"CylancePROTECT is going to tell you if there are any issues and you are going to be able to see everything from one single dashboard."
"The solution is extremely scalable. It's got the hybrid functionality, it's got the system functionality and cloud functionality as well."
"On the management side, we liked the way it displays things."
"The CylancePROTECT agent is very low on CPU usage, so it has virtually no adverse impact on my servers, desktops, or workstations."
"It secures different entry points into the network."
"Does malware analysis. Blocks WannaCry and other attacks that have come out."
"The solution does a good job of blocking whatever it thinks needs to be blocked and it doesn't require a lot of performance from the computer."
"What I like best about CylancePROTECT is its accuracy, as it doesn't give many false positives."
"It speeds up our process of detecting vulnerabilities and threats, has significantly reduced the amount of time to respond to threats and manage threats, has definitely improved our security, and also helped us in reducing management costs."
"It is a very advanced system based on AI. It has a very large database of places or sites on the internet where you should not go. It is continuously online."
"We have liked the fact that it comes with Microsoft Windows 10 and it is constantly updated with all new virus definitions. It is also updated with new security features on a regular basis."
"It doesn't cause the slowness of the system, which is one of the reasons why I like it."
"One of the best features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is called Threat and Vulnerability Management, TVM, which provides real-time visibility of vulnerabilities and misconfiguration at our endpoint level and helps prioritize and remediate based on risk information."
"Microsoft Defender is always running. It is doing its job, so it is fine. I don't have any issues with the way it was implemented or how we are running it. We have been upgrading IT throughout the years, but there have been no issues."
"It's free. There is no additional cost. It's part of Windows."
"Defender is stable. The performance is good."
 

Cons

"Based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"There's an overall lack of features."
"We had a problem with getting our older endpoints up to date, but their newest updates have been really good. I've been pleased with it in terms of what our needs are. It's doing what we want it to do."
"This is a very costly product."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management. It would be useful to look at the client's issue to fix it."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"Product might have some bugs."
"In terms of areas of improvement, we have not completed our review of the product. We're also looking at other products. So, it's a little bit hard to tell what could be different because we have not completed the review of this product, but based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"​It needs real analysis of quarantined files. The EDR product isn't showing much right now."
"The solution’s technical support could be improved."
"CylancePROTECT's technical support is non-existent."
"The product needs to continue to offer better alerts, in particular around false positives, and it needs to reduce them from happening."
"It should have better support for Windows and Mac."
"CylancePROTECT's dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"While you are working, you are finding these things that were supposed to be waived have come back to being blocked. That's frustrating."
"The process of whitelisting a script that you want to be able to run can be a little bit difficult, or awkward."
"The price, in general, could always be a little bit cheaper."
"The log searches for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are pretty difficult to navigate. It needs a better UI or more intuitive search and filter mechanisms to make it easy to get through and filter through all the data logs."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender a seven out of 10 because of its lack of usability for an MSP and its lack of telemetry information, but it is useful, and it does stop ransomware."
"The GUI is very complex, particularly for normal users who work on it."
"It could be easier when it comes to managing exceptions."
"I think the overall portal of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could be improved; sometimes there's moving around to different spots and it's a little hard to navigate, so getting used to that was perhaps the biggest hurdle."
"Other vendors provide a lot of customization when it comes to integration, which every big organization requires. No big organization depends on one particular tool. Defender lacks that at this point."
"The reporting in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should improve. The solution has limited features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"I am using the Community edition."
"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"CylancePROTECT's pricing is reasonable, at about €18 per user, per year."
"CylancePROTECT is an affordable solution."
"My company is on a yearly CylancePROTECT subscription. Price-wise, the solution is slightly expensive, so I'd rate it as eight out of ten."
"Currently, we have competitive pricing for Cylance, which is affordable enough to consider."
"It's not so heavily priced; rather, it's average and decent."
"The initial end-point cost may seem a little high (~$55/device/year) but when you look at the total peace of mind that the solution provides, with no reboots for updates, and negligible performance impact, it is well worth it."
"Our licensing cost for the solution is around $4,000 for six months. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"This cost of the license is approximately $5 USD monthly per user."
"There is not a license required for this particular solution."
"The price of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is reasonable. Other solutions are more expensive, such as ClowdStrike."
"The cost is high, compared to other products in the market, if you look at it as a separate product. If you look at the cost where it is part of a bundle, the cost is okay."
"It's included with the Windows Operating System, I don't pay for any licensing fees."
"If you don't purchase the advanced threat protection then there is no additional charge."
"Licensing models of Microsoft are renowned for being complex. We just purchased the whole E5 stack. With E5 licenses for users, we get access to a bunch of features that are not just related to security. I would rate them a three out of five in terms of pricing."
"Because Microsoft Defender comes as an add-on, it can be a bit expensive if you're trying to buying it separately. Another option is to upgrade, but the enterprise licenses for Microsoft can also be quite a bit pricey. Overall, the cost of Microsoft Defender compared to that of other endpoint detection solutions is slightly higher."
"This product is included in the pricing for Windows."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise55
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise97
 

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 Blackberry Protect?
The price is reasonable for us at the moment. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with Blackberry Protect?
I face challenges with the exclusion policy - it still scans folders we told it not to, causing issues. When we conta...
What is your primary use case for Blackberry Protect?
I am using CylancePROTECT as an active learning algorithm. We installed it on almost 20,000 servers and virtual machi...
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...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Blackberry Protect
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
Panasonic, Noble Energy, Apria Healthcare Group Inc., Charles River Laboratories, Rovi Corporation, Toyota, Kiewit
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about BlackBerry Cylance Cybersecurity vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.