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ESET EDR/XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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)
ESET EDR/XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
29th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (20th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (21st)
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 ESET EDR/XDR is 1.1%, up from 0.7% 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%
ESET EDR/XDR1.1%
Other89.6%
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.
GirdharMishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager at iONE IT Solutions
Centralized monitoring has improved threat visibility and reduced incident response time
In terms of valuable features in ESET EDR/XDR, we focus on endpoint device management as well as for the firewall team, including our log analysis and monitoring the firewall, which are three significant functions for us. ESET EDR/XDR has automated threat detection that gives us real-time incident alerts, and it helps us proactively receive and work on incidents that could have an impact. Regarding the usefulness of ESET EDR/XDR's behavior-based analysis in detecting potential breaches, we have identified some files or configuration files that should remain static, and if any changes occur without proper change management, we are able to identify those changes, including detecting zero-day attacks. The integration of threat intelligence feeds has helped our response strategies, as we are using Oracle OCA-based data analysis, and we have integrated it so that logs are forwarded to our SIEM, allowing us to analyze the data effectively. I evaluate the impact of centralized management on our security operations as very useful because it eliminates the need to log into individual systems to find sources, allowing us to identify all types of risks and vulnerabilities from a single desk.
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 scalability of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very good."
"Being a cloud solution it is very flexible in serving internal and external connections and a broad range of devices."
"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."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"Traps pays for itself within the first 16 months of a three-year subscription."
"Stability is a primary factor, and then there's the ease of distribution and policy management; Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very easy to work with, and we're quite happy with them."
"I can highlight that we have not faced any security incidents with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, and even though our environment is quite dynamic, we have not faced any security incident with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks until now."
"It has absolutely improved the way our organization functions, we are more secure, it is giving us more peace of mind, and it has found malicious activity happening on our endpoints that probably would not have been detected if we didn't have it."
"It is pretty easy to install without any hassles, and ESET EDR_XDR has its own cloud portal where everything is available."
"The initial setup of ESET EDR_XDR is very simple, easy to deploy, and manage."
"ESET EDR/XDR has automated threat detection that gives us real-time incident alerts, and it helps us proactively receive and work on incidents that could have an impact."
"The solution is easy to use."
"A few years ago, when I was using a different product, I was affected by a virus that destroyed everything. Since using Microsoft Defender, I have not had this kind of problem."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender has been around for many years, and since Windows 10, they've really ramped it up, and it has gotten a lot better."
"The advanced threat protection has a large cloud presence in Azure that we can take advantage of, and they update their product frequently."
"My advice for anybody who is looking into using this product is that it's a good and easy way to secure your PC."
"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use and the updates are very simple."
"We had some problem and, after four hours, we had new signatures for the environment by our customers for more than a thousand clients so that we can protect and improve the new setup."
"I like the fact that it has the ransomware solution in there. I'm glad that the ransomware solution is built into it. That's probably the biggest thing that I see in Microsoft Defender."
 

Cons

"The price could be a little lower."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"The setup is quite easy. We had appropriate support from the manager. One thing that was missing was the integration part."
"The product's pricing could be better."
"The downside to the solution is that there are a large number of false positives."
"Whenever the tool releases a new version when deploying the product across the organization, I feel like there are some disturbances in the CPU usage after upgrading the tool to the latest version."
"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"Additionally, I think the price is very high, and if it can be adjusted, I believe it will be a very good solution."
"ESET EDR_XDR needs to conduct more research and development and innovations in early detection of attacks."
"The solution could improve how it scours each website."
"The memory and CPU footprint can affect performance. It sometimes slows down the CPU performance."
"The only issue I would say is our mobile endpoints do not have Defender installed for part of them. An additional feature that could be included in the next release is free Copilot."
"It would be helpful if they included XDR features, on top of the EDR functionality."
"The solution could be more friendly for end-users, with different type of scans or scheduled scans for it."
"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."
"Threat intelligence has the potential for improvement, particularly by integrating more sources."
"On Mac, it's quite unstable and unusable; however, it's very stable for Windows."
"Service Requests. Noncritical cases with MDE technical support teams tend to be queued for over a week before the first customer engagement."
"Sometimes it is a little lacking, but for the most part, they are able to provide exactly what I need."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a yearly renewal."
"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is 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."
"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"I rate the solution’s pricing a six or seven out of ten.."
"The base price for an E5 license, which includes Enterprise Mobility + Security E5, is $57 per user per month."
"For most people, the price of the license is not something that they have to worry about."
"Licensing fees are paid annually through a partner."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"There is an annual license required."
"The pricing is competitive."
"This product is included in the pricing for Windows."
"The solution is an open source version and was free with a paid version of Windows 10."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ESET EDR/XDR?
I find the price of ESET EDR/XDR to be competitive to the market, which is a reasonable aspect for us.
What needs improvement with ESET EDR/XDR?
I just deploy and forget it, so I don't get into much detail about improvements. The major setback we face with ESET ...
What advice do you have for others considering ESET EDR/XDR?
We might get good pricing one year, and then the next year there could be significant pricing issues. Integration wit...
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
ESET Secure Authentication
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
Mitsubishi Motors, Canon
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about ESET EDR/XDR vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.