Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Heimdal Endpoint Security comparison

Cisco and Heimdal are both solutions in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category. Cisco is ranked #34 with an average rating of 8.7, while Heimdal is ranked #40 with an average rating of 9.0. Cisco holds a 1.3% mindshare in EPP, compared to Heimdal’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Heimdal users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Endpoint and Heimdal Endpoint Security based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Microsoft, SentinelOne and others in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP).

To learn more, read our detailed Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)

February 2026

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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...

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.5%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.3%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heimdal Endpoint Security is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks	3.5%
Cisco Secure Endpoint	1.3%
Heimdal Endpoint Security	0.5%
Other	94.7%

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH

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.

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JavedHashmi

Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies

Reliable threat protection is achieved while integration and analysis capabilities need refinement

Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet. We haven't encountered a single breach after it's deployed. It controls USB devices and has a separate antivirus solution called Tetra, providing security even for real-time, day-zero attacks through its strong Talos threat intelligence platform.

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DEEPAK KUMAR PACHDEO DUBEY

Senior IT Support Specialist at PXGEO

Delivers efficiency and agility with USB control limitations

One area where we lag is that, since we use everything from Heimdal, including XDR and other features, we also use the privilege manager feature called Elevation. What we lack is granular USB control. We have an issue where we can only switch USB on or off. I want to whitelist specific devices in the network, which I currently cannot do.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Based on my experience, I would recommend Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks to other people."

"The solution helps find bugs, and it is safe to use to prevent attacks by hackers."

"The management capabilities, allow an IT organization to get quite a good picture of attempted cyber attacks."

"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."

"Cortex XDR lets us manage several clients from the same console, and its endpoint defense is more advanced than traditional antivirus."

"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."

"After deploying Traps, we saw the performance of the network improve by 65 to 70 percent."

"The tool is easy to use."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is its integration with other Cisco products, such as switches and routers. This integration allows comprehensive coverage of security parameters across the customer's entire network. Customers find it easier to manage because they already know Cisco products. The cloud-based management is another valuable feature, enabling customers to manage their security from anywhere with an internet connection."

"The solution makes it possible to see a threat once and block it everywhere across all endpoints and the entire security platform. It has the ability to block right down to the file and application level across all devices based on policies, such as, blacklisting and whitelisting of software and applications. This is good. Its strength is the ability to identify threats very quickly, then lock them and the network down and block the threats across the organization and all devices, which is what you want. You don't want to be spending time working out how to block something. You want to block something very quickly, letting that flow through to all the devices and avoiding the same scenario on different operating systems."

"I am really satisfied with the technical support."

"The product itself is pretty reliable. The security features that it has make it reliable."

"The VPN is most valuable. It's the best thing in the market today. We can use two-factor authentication with another platform, and we can authenticate with two-factor."

"The threat Grid with the ability to observe the sandboxing, analyze, and perform investigations of different malicious files has been great."

"The product's initial setup phase was very simple."

"The visibility and insight this solution gives you into threats is pretty granular. It has constant monitoring. You can get onto the device trajectory to look at a threat, but you can also see what happened prior to the threat. You can see what happened after the threat. You can see what other applications were incorporated into the execution of the threat. For example, you have the event, but you see that the event was launched by Google Chrome, which was launched by something else. Then, after the event, something else was launched by whatever the threat was. Therefore, it gives you great detail, a timeline, and continuity of events leading up to whatever the incident is, and then, after. This helps you understand and nail down what the threat is and how to fix it."

More Cisco Secure Endpoint pros

"Heimdal is a very agile and lightweight solution."

"As compared to multiple solutions I have used in the past, Heimdal is a very agile and lightweight solution."

Cons

"The dashboard is the area that needs to improve so that we can have the ability to drill down without having to go elsewhere to verify results."

"They have the worst support, as a company, that I have ever worked with, as they are difficult to get a hold of and keep on the phone. They don't know what they are talking about when you get them on the phone. They don't like to respond to messages when you send them to them. They like to "research problems" for weeks on end, then pass you off to somebody else."

"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."

"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."

"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."

"It should support more mobile operating systems. That is one of the cons of their infrastructure right now."

"I have seen lagging with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. There was one time when we faced a threat actor trying to gain access to our system. When our team utilized the tool, we were all on the same dashboard and we faced a lag issue at that time of around five minutes, which was quite significant."

"When it comes to malware files, it should be a little quick because, at times, it would give a wrong result in the sense of what it might be on malware, even if it still might be a normal one."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks cons

"The integration of the Cisco products for security could be better in the sense that not everything is integrated, and they aren't working together. In addition, not all products are multi-tenant, so you can't separate different customer environments from each other, which makes it a little bit hard for a managed service provider to deliver services to the customers."

"The Linux agent is a simple offline classic agent, and it doesn't support Secure Boot, which is important to have on a Linux machine. The Linux agent has conflicts with other solutions, including the Exploit Prevention system found in Windows servers. We didn't find a fix during troubleshooting, and Cisco couldn't offer one either. Eventually, we had to shut down the Exploit Prevention system. We didn't like that as we always want a solution that can fit smoothly into the setup without causing problems, especially where security is concerned. The tool also caused CPU spikes on our production machine, and we were seriously considering moving to another product."

"Integration and dashboard are areas with certain shortcomings in Cisco Secure Endpoint."

"The thing I hate the most, which they have not fixed, is when it creates duplicate entries within a console. If you have a computer and you upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, or you upgrade your agent from version 6 to 7, it creates a new instance in there instead of updating the information. Instead of paying a license for one computer, I have to license two computers until I manually go in, search for all the duplicate entries, and clean them out myself."

"In the next version of this solution, I would like to see the addition of local authentication."

"It is not very stable because we have new versions four times a year, which fixes bugs. We had some problems with some deployments."

"It cannot currently block URLs over websites."

"We would like to have an API integration with a SIEM solution, because as far as I know, it currently hasn't yet been released."

More Cisco Secure Endpoint cons

"What we lack is granular USB control."

"What we lack is granular USB control. We have an issue where we can only switch USB on or off."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."

"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is on a yearly-basis."

"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."

"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."

"Cortex XDR is a costly solution."

"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."

"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."

"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."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

"Licensing fees are on a yearly basis and I am happy with the pricing."

"We can know if something bad is potentially happening instantaneously and prevent it from happening. We can go to a device and isolate it before it infects other devices. In our environment, that's millions of dollars saved in a matter of seconds."

"There are a couple of different consumption models: Pay up front, or if you have an enterprise agreement, you can do a monthly thing. Check your licensing possibilities and see what's best for your organization."

"...the licensing needs to be improved. All the product features we need are there. It's just a matter of the complexity and the different offerings and trying to figure things out."

"We had faced some license issues, but it has been improved. At the beginning of the implementation, we faced a lot of licensing issues, but now, we have EA licensing, which gives us an opportunity to grow."

"You must make monthly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. There are no extra charges apart from the standard licensing fees associated with the product."

"Whenever you are doing the licensing process, I would highly advise to look at what other Cisco solutions you have in your organization, then evaluate if an Enterprise Agreement is the best way to go. In our case, it was the best way to go. Since we had so many other Cisco products, we were able to tie those in. We were actually able to get several Cisco security solutions for less than if we had bought three or four Cisco security solutions independently or ad hoc."

"The visibility that we have into the endpoint and the forensics that we're able to collect give us value for the price. This is not an overly expensive solution, considering all the things that are provided. You get great performance and value for the cost."

More Cisco Secure Endpoint pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Non Profit

Media Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	44
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	21
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	21

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. ...

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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...

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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,...

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What do you like most about Cisco Secure Endpoint?

The product's initial setup phase was very simple.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Endpoint?

Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdS...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Endpoint?

Cisco Secure Endpoint lacks features like DLP which other vendors offer. XDR is new, so integration capabilities with...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Heimdal Endpoint Security?

Pricing, compared to what we had before, was quite economical. There was a difference of about twenty percent or some...

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What needs improvement with Heimdal Endpoint Security?

One area where we lag is that, since we use everything from Heimdal, including XDR and other features, we also use th...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Heimdal Endpoint Security?

My company colleagues and I use this antivirus solution. I am part of a company where I deploy solutions, and I also ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 9% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Complete vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 6% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

Cortex XSIAM vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 3% of the time

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Competitors

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Cisco Secure Endpoint

Compared 7% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Cisco Secure Endpoint

Compared 6% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Complete vs Cisco Secure Endpoint

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Carbon Black Workload vs Cisco Secure Endpoint

Compared 3% of the time

Huntress Managed EDR vs Cisco Secure Endpoint

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco Secure Endpoint Competitors

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Heimdal Endpoint Security

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Heimdal Endpoint Security

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Heimdal Endpoint Security

Compared 6% of the time

Coro vs Heimdal Endpoint Security

Compared 5% of the time

Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense vs Heimdal Endpoint Security

Compared 5% of the time

More Heimdal Endpoint Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

March 2026

Download Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Endpoint

March 2026

Download Cisco Secure Endpoint product report

Buyer's Guide

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)

February 2026

Download Heimdal Endpoint Security product report

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps

Cisco AMP for Endpoints

Heimdal Next-Gent Endpoint Antivirus, Thor Vigilance Enterprise, Heimdal Endpoint Detection and Response, Heimdal DNS Security - Endpoint, Heimdal Threat Prevention, Heimdal Ransomware Encryption Protection

Overview

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks provides advanced threat detection with AI-driven endpoint protection and seamless integration, ensuring multi-layered security and automatic threat response.

Cortex XDR is designed to safeguard endpoints against malware and suspicious activities. It offers advanced threat detection and response capabilities using behavioral analysis, AI, and machine learning. It seamlessly integrates with security infrastructures, providing endpoint security, firewall integration, and enhanced visibility in both cloud-based and on-premises environments.

What are the key features of Cortex XDR?

Advanced Threat Detection: Uses AI and machine learning for proactive threat identification.
Multi-layered Security: Combines various security measures for comprehensive protection.
Endpoint Protection: Safeguards against malware and exploits.
Behavioral Analysis: Monitors suspicious activity for early detection.
Automatic Threat Response: Automates responses to neutralize threats.

What benefits should users expect?

Ease of Use: Simplifies security management with intuitive design.
Resource Efficiency: Minimizes impact on system resources.
Integration Capabilities: Works well with existing security setups.
Reduced Analyst Workload: Automates processes to decrease manual intervention.

Organizations in diverse sectors deploy Cortex XDR to protect against malware, leveraging its advanced threat detection capabilities. Its integration with existing security infrastructures appeals to those seeking comprehensive protection in both cloud and on-premises environments, providing enhanced visibility and threat intelligence.

Palo Alto Networks

Cisco Secure Endpoint is a comprehensive endpoint security solution that natively includes open and extensible extended detection and response (XDR) and advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities. Secure Endpoint offers relentless breach protection that enables you to be confident, be bold, and be fearless with one of the industry’s most trusted endpoint security solutions. It protects your hybrid workforce, helps you stay resilient, and secures what’s next with simple, comprehensive endpoint security powered by unique insights from 300,000 security customers and deep visibility from the networking leader.

Cisco Secure Endpoint was formerly known as Cisco AMP for Endpoints.

Reviews from Real Users

Cisco Secure Endpoint stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its ability to enable developers to easily secure their endpoints with one single operation using its management console and its advanced alerting techniques.

Tim C., an IT manager at Van Der Meer Consulting, writes, "The solution makes it possible to see a threat once and block it everywhere across all endpoints and the entire security platform. It has the ability to block right down to the file and application level across all devices based on policies, such as, blacklisting and whitelisting of software and applications. This is good. Its strength is the ability to identify threats very quickly, then lock them and the network down and block the threats across the organization and all devices, which is what you want. You don't want to be spending time working out how to block something. You want to block something very quickly, letting that flow through to all the devices and avoiding the same scenario on different operating systems."

Wouter H., a technical team lead network & security at Missing Piece BV, notes, "Any alert that we get is an actionable alert. Immediately, there is information that we can just click through, see the point in time, what happened, what caused it, and what automatic actions were taken. We can then choose to take any manual actions, if we want, or start our investigation. We're no longer looking at digging into information or wading through hundreds of incidents. There's a list which says where the status is assigned, e.g., under investigation or investigation finished. That is all in the console. It has taken away a lot of the administration, which we would normally be doing, and integrated it into the console for us."

Cisco

Heimdal Endpoint Security, is a comprehensive suite of security tools designed to safeguard devices from a range of cyber threats. Offering functionalities like Next-Generation Antivirus, Endpoint Detection and Response, Application Control, Firewall, and Mobile Device Management, Heimdal ensures a multi-layered defense against malware, suspicious activities, and unauthorized applications. Its benefits include proactive threat detection, enhanced efficiency through task automation, centralized management for streamlined administration, and dedicated mobile device security features. Targeted primarily at businesses and organizations of all sizes, Heimdal Endpoint Security caters to the diverse cybersecurity needs of modern enterprises, providing robust protection against evolving threats.

Heimdal

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank

Brother, Symbion, CPH West

Buyer's Guide

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)

February 2026

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