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CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 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 Detection and Response (EDR)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
35th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (40th), Vulnerability Management (45th), Application Control (10th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (10th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 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 CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.9%, down from 11.0% 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 Endpoint6.9%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.4%
CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber0.7%
Other89.0%
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.
Gary Herbstman - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Byte Solutions Inc.
Experienced reduced alert fatigue with streamlined notifications
We use Blackpoint Cyber MDR for our higher-end clients who need a higher level of control over security I appreciate that there are people behind the scenes sorting out valuable alerts from those that are not, so I only get alerts when they are real. This feature ensures that I am notified only…
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 generally believe that Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is probably the best in the market right now."
"The solution doesn't need a high level of technical training."
"Palo Alto is the core of the security infrastructure in the environment."
"Automation and playbooks have helped me significantly, as Cortex Xnor's playbooks predefine the workflow of the automation, such as response processes, alert triggering, and enriching the context, efficiently detecting and blocking malicious attacks with firewalls while eliminating workload and speeding responses for next-generation operations."
"If the user leaves our premises or network, Palo Alto Traps will still be on that endpoint and will still apply our policies."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks saves time in various ways, although the user interface is fairly standard."
"The product's most valuable features are massive user and feature intelligence exploit detection."
"On a scale from one to ten, I would rate the overall solution as a ten."
"The solution also watches over Microsoft 365 and keeps a copy of logs."
"The solution is all encompassing and can incorporate email monitoring."
"I appreciate that there are people behind the scenes sorting out valuable alerts from those that are not, so I only get alerts when they are real."
"On my end, the most valuable feature of this solution is that I can install it and forget about it. After that, their SOC team takes over and they only call me when there's a problem."
"I appreciate that there are people behind the scenes sorting out valuable alerts from those that are not, so I only get alerts when they are real."
"Their SOC is phenomenal in not monitoring and responding and taking action."
"It's really stable. I've used a lot of stuff, a lot of products, like ESET and Kaspersky. None of them are comparable with this one. This one is much better."
"I am using it for very simple purposes. It is perfect and quite effective. I have been using it for a while, and I have never had any virus infection, data leak, or other security breaches. It works fine for standalone purposes. If you log on to OneDrive, it has ransomware protection."
"User-friendly, offering safety and security."
"Microsoft Defender can block some viruses or malware. So, it can protect my files. It can save files on Office 365 OneDrive. I use encryption for some files, then I can recover them from OneDrive."
"Defender is stable, I haven't had any problems with viruses when using it, and it's easy to update."
"It's effective against most types of infection, and the firewall is perfect for protection."
"It shows us the risky sign-ins, and if a user's password has been compromised."
"It's stable."
 

Cons

"I would like to see better protection, specifically to protect email applications."
"We would also like to have advanced tech protection and email scanning."
"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."
"Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth."
"The connection to the internet has not performed as expected."
"The encryption is not up to the mark."
"The solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"When it comes to core analysis, and security analysis, Cortex needs to provide more information."
"The feature we keep asking for is a vulnerability scan."
"While I am very satisfied with the service, supporting additional platforms, particularly Linux support, would be a beneficial improvement."
"The interface could be more intuitive. More transparency is needed in the interface as a lot of details are hidden behind the scenes, making them difficult or impossible to access."
"The interface could be more intuitive."
"The solution does not tie into other EDR products like CyberArk or CrowdStrike but that might be more useful."
"While I am very satisfied with the service, supporting additional platforms, particularly Linux support, would be a beneficial improvement."
"Some texts seem to report items as normal too quickly."
"The time it takes to implement policies has room for improvement."
"If they integrate with the EDR then it will benefit this solution."
"It can get a bit laggy sometimes. Other than that, we don't have any issues. They constantly tweak it and fix it up based on users' feedback. It has improved a lot over the past four years. Defender for Endpoint never really used to be a good endpoint security solution, but over the past couple of years, Microsoft has invested heavily in it. So, it has come a long way in all aspects of endpoint security. If they want to make it better, they should just continue investing in the current path of what they've been doing over the past couple of years."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could provide us with a more holistic approach, such as collaboration. They can provide us with an environment from where we can manage all the endpoints from one central location, such as overall management."
"The interface isn't necessarily intuitive to a nontechnical person. You can get stuck in the little endpoint security portal. Sometimes, if you uninstall a competitive product, the end user doesn't always know if it's running or if they're protected even though it's silently running. There could be a notification, widget, or something that's resident on the screen for at least a bit, especially if you're doing remote support. You want to talk them through it, but sometimes, we're not allowed to look at the PCs we support."
"I would like to have a dashboard that shows an overview of the results for the enterprise."
"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."
"The system can always be simplified and have a better integration check. More detailed reports would be good. When it does the integrated check, it just shows if the system is okay but I want to know what happened."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is on a yearly-basis."
"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."
"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."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is in line with other products."
"The cost is competitive and reasonable because most of the expense is log analytics, storage, and data consumption and ingestion. These things can be throttled and controlled, so they are highly flexible. Defender has a lot of advantages over competing products."
"You do not need to pay any additional costs for antivirus and anti-malware solutions for endpoint protection."
"The license for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included in the license for the Microsoft Windows operating system."
"We have the E5 security license, and the solution comes with that."
"It is built into Windows 10. If our clients are using Microsoft Defender, the cost goes away for them."
"Microsoft Defender is an expensive product in my country."
"It's all pretty easy. For some clients, it's an easier sell because it's just an add-on to their existing Microsoft licensing and Office 365 licensing."
"This is an expensive product and licensing for all Microsoft products is a big issue."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise47
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise40
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 needs improvement with Blackpoint Cyber MDR?
While I am very satisfied with the service, supporting additional platforms, particularly Linux support, would be a b...
What is your primary use case for Blackpoint Cyber MDR?
The solution serves as a baseline security offering. We have implemented it for every client that we do business with.
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?
I'm not too familiar with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint; it wasn't some...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Blackpoint Cyber Managed Detection + Response, Blackpoint Cyber Managed Detection and Response
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
CoreRecon, Peerless Tech Solutions, Lorien Health
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.