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ConnectWise SIEM 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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
ConnectWise SIEM
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
55th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (46th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (22nd), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (24th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ConnectWise SIEM is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 5.6%, down from 10.1% 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 Endpoint5.6%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.7%
ConnectWise SIEM0.8%
Other89.9%
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.
reviewer2711757 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Software Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Automated alerting and reporting excel while cost and feature limitations remain
I find automation to be one of the best and most valuable features of the product. Machine learning is incorporated into the solution, though AI is a broader term that I wouldn't apply here. I haven't personally explored AI yet, but I will investigate it. Machine learning functions more as automation in my experience, as there's no training involved yet. I want to conduct R&D on another project with Wazuh to determine how to capture usage, for example, tracking user logins and time spent. This is where I need to implement machine learning. Additionally, the extraction of GeoIP adds complexity. The solution is effectively reducing incident response times in operations.
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

"Cortex XDR's most valuable feature is its intelligence-based dashboards."
"Stability-wise, it is good; I did not hear about any issues in terms of stability, and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be trusted completely."
"It's very stable. I've never experienced downtime for the ASM console or ASM core."
"If you are looking for security, mainly for advanced threat prevention from ransomware and malware attacks, I would recommend Cortex."
"From a single pane of glass, you can easily manage all of your endpoints."
"Threat identification and detection are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The best feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is that it collects logs from different sections such as the endpoint, the network, and the cloud, making it easy to investigate alerts, collect some of the investigation packages related to the infected machines, and provide live response."
"The most valuable features are incident creation, policy-based protection, IP whitelisting, and device encryption. These are beneficial for endpoint and server security."
"The integration capabilities of ConnectWise SIEM are off the shelf, making it easy to buy and use; you just unpack it and use it."
"One valuable feature of ConnectWise Fortify is the ability to add other teams and receive notifications when customers make changes or remove multi-factor authentication in Microsoft or SAP environments."
"We have found the solution has great functionality and it is easy to use."
"The installation is straightforward."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable. Currently, we have 600,000 users in our organization."
"When it comes to the comprehensiveness of the threat protection from these products, so far I have seen how it's able to pick up the smallest script that is hidden in any type of malicious file."
"We have just started to implement it, and it is useful for protection from malware and ransomware."
"The patch updates and version updates are very good. Those happen on an automated basis whenever I'm connecting to the organization network, either through LAN or through the VPN."
"I enjoy using the live response feature, which allows me to remotely access different endpoints and investigate malicious files, such as malware that people may have downloaded, and other related issues."
"I would highly recommend Microsoft Defender Antivirus for an individual looking to protect their endpoints."
"Because it has been integrated with the OS, we get the entire software inventories, and we even get access to the registries. Those are the primary features."
 

Cons

"Cortex XDR should have a lightweight agent, and the agent size should not be heavy."
"The negative aspect I see is the economic model used by Palo Alto."
"In reporting they should have a customizable dashboard due to the fact that C-level people don't like reporting to the IT department. They prefer to have a real-time dashboard. That kind of dashboard needs to have various customizations."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can improve mobile integration to allow access to the console."
"The price could be a little lower."
"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."
"There's an overall lack of features."
"It is a complex solution to implement."
"ConnectWise SIEM is primarily focused on notifications and is limited in that aspect, while Wazuh can automate the elimination process."
"ConnectWise Fortify could work on covering more areas, like phishing messages, which have become more complicated to detect."
"The manage portion of the solution is complicated and should be simplified by having different versions to meet the needs of different size companies."
"The major area for improvement is the integration with a managed service provider. We use Microsoft partners to help govern the platform, and as part of an alliance, we want to gather data from each tenant and combine them for a complete view. This process has been complicated, though it has gotten better."
"They're in the process of pulling more things together. They can continue with the integrations and provide a better way of seeing the impact of security changes, especially on the endpoint side. Before we actually flip the switch, we should be able to see the impact of security changes on the business or business applications. It would prevent breaking any business applications."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint could improve by providing more user-friendly dashboards. They may be complicated for some."
"One of the differences between other solutions I have used and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that the latter is not yet enterprise-ready to the same extent that the other vendors are."
"Integrating this with third-party systems has some complexity involved."
"I would like MDE to have the ability to isolate a certain amount of time on the timeline."
"From an audit point of view, our auditors would like to have more reports on how things are used, if things go wrong, and how they went wrong. For example, if something got a warning, "Why?" So, we would like more versatility for tracing and reporting. That would improve the product, as long as the user interface doesn't get bogged down."
"It could be easier when it comes to managing exceptions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel it is fairly priced."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"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 pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"When compared with other vendors, the pricing is very high."
"We are using the free version."
"This solution is part of an enterprise license we have."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an expensive solution."
"It's included with the Windows Operating System, I don't pay for any licensing fees."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes with Windows 10, and it's free. But for you to be able to manage it in the cloud and use the console, you need to have either an Office 365 E5 subscription or a Microsoft M365 subscription. You need to buy an extra license."
"There is not a license required for this particular solution."
"The solution is included with Microsoft Windows."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise96
 

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 ConnectWise Fortify?
I haven't utilized the advanced threat intelligence capabilities with ConnectWise SIEM. Advanced threat intelligence ...
What is your primary use case for ConnectWise Fortify?
I do not have experience with ConnectWise SIEM for RMM, as I mostly work on Wazuh, and I have a team that handles Con...
What advice do you have for others considering ConnectWise Fortify?
The review can be made anonymous if just my name and not the company name is used. I would assess the real-time visib...
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
ConnectWise Security Management, ConnectWise Fortify, Continuum Fortify, ConnectWise SIEM, ConnectWise SASE
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
Techvera, Syrex, Clark Integrated Technologies
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about ConnectWise SIEM vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.