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FortiXDR vs Microsoft Defender XDR 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 Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
FortiXDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (8th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.6%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FortiXDR is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 4.2%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.6%
Microsoft Defender XDR4.2%
FortiXDR1.3%
Other89.9%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

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.
LL
Integration capabilities enhance compatibility across various cloud environments
I have extensive experience using Fortinet solutions, especially FortiXDR. I have implemented perimeter security in Azure, utilizing features such as web application firewall, application control, and security management.  I specialize in security for data centers, using various Fortinet solutions…
reviewer2812758 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infosec at a government with 10,001+ employees
Integrated defenses have unified threat hunting, phishing simulations, and identity investigations
I appreciate Microsoft Defender XDR's MDE, Microsoft Defender tool, which has Attack Simulator. Instead of doing a phishing campaign and getting a separate tool, Microsoft Defender XDR does it all. These features of Microsoft Defender XDR have helped us conduct a phishing campaign quarterly, which has been beneficial. I also appreciate the fact that it has Defender for Office integrated, Defender for Identity, and everything integrated together. I would describe the process of using Microsoft Defender XDR to prioritize incidents in my security operations as quite decent. I appreciate the automatic alerting system where any incidents or alerts we receive come directly to our email. From there, we can open the email, go directly to Microsoft Defender XDR, and start our investigations and remediations. I perceive the integration of security and identity access management in Microsoft Defender XDR as affecting my identity protection strategies very well because it is well integrated with Purview, integrated well with Entra ID, and integrated well with Exchange. I especially appreciate MDO, the Office product. If anything happens and I want to conduct an investigation, it takes me directly to Exchange, where I can also investigate any emails or phishing incidents. Instead of going to different portals, everything can be done from Microsoft Defender XDR. If necessary for further investigation, Microsoft Defender XDR then directs me to that environment. I would assess the integration of AI in guiding security actions within Microsoft Defender XDR as quite positive. Recently, Security Copilot went big, and it is beneficial that I can use that, especially to write KQL. I can do threat hunting features and intelligence all within using Microsoft's Security Copilot. It also has a nice AI feature for threat hunting. I know that all the Defender logs go to Sentinel, and I can pull it up from Microsoft Defender XDR or from Sentinel. The fact that I can actually do all that within Microsoft Defender XDR is a nice feature. In the top module, I can do threat lookups, and I can actually type KQLs in Microsoft Defender XDR and look up incidents. Predictive shielding has had a nice impact on my proactive security measures. It is beneficial that it has, similar to Entra ID, a secure score. For me to improve the product, the secure score helps me out. If I rate it from highest to lowest, I can see what things I can improve. Secure score helps me see what areas I can improve in Microsoft Defender XDR to increase my score and bring it to 80 or more. Knowing Microsoft Defender XDR from using it since 2019, before COVID days, I know that they have improved significantly. It is much more user-friendly and has a very nice vulnerability feature that I find handy and useful. The fact that this feature integrates into Intune is also very decent.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use it for malicious connections from malicious websites, to identify payloads that might be inside the traffic, to identify malicious processes or bugs that are running on the network, and any activities that tend to lead to data infiltration."
"Traps is quite a stable product. Once it was properly deployed and configured, you have nothing to be worried about."
"Cortex XDR is a simple platform that's easy for administrators and users. You have a lot of flexibility to change or customize the features."
"We've had a significant increase in blocking with a decrease in false positives, because it's looking at how the files work, not just a list of files that it's been told to look for."
"Threat identification and detection are the most valuable features of this solution."
"From the Palo Alto side, whatever they buy, they integrate that really well into their integration suite, and that makes a massive difference."
"Stability is one of the features we like the most."
"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"The most valuable feature of FortiXDR is its ability to block clients, providing comprehensive endpoint protection."
"The most valuable feature of FortiXDR is it integrates well with other Fortinet solutions, such as Fortinet firewall, FortiMail, FortiSandbox, Forti Fabric, switches, and access points. Whatever the flow of the traffic comes in or goes out, the entire traffic can be managed and monitored properly."
"FortiXDR is valuable for its integration capabilities with one hundred percent compatibility with other vendors in cloud environments like Google, Oracle, and Microsoft."
"The product is stable enough."
"Our customers are satisfied with FortiXDR."
"The ability to hunt that IM data set or the identity data set at the same time is valuable. As incident response professionals, we are very used to EDRs and having device process registry telemetry, but a lot of times, we do not have that identity data right there with us, so we have to go search for it in some other silo. Being able to cross-correlate via both datasets at the same time is something that we can only do in Def"
"The threat intelligence is excellent."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is simple to upgrade."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a stable solution."
"Scanning, vulnerability reporting, and the dashboard are the most valuable features."
"Microsoft Defender is very stable, and you can see that there is a 99.9% success rate when they give us good service."
"Microsoft Sentinel enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem, investigate threats, and respond from one place, which has reduced our time to detection and time to response by about 20 percent."
"Microsoft Defender XDR has significantly improved our operational security."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve by providing better integration with their own products and others."
"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."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by adding a sandbox feature to better compete with their competitors which have it."
"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."
"We would also like to have advanced tech protection and email scanning."
"Cortex XDR should have a lightweight agent, and the agent size should not be heavy."
"It's very time-consuming to log support issues and the people that answer the tickets aren't very knowledgeable."
"Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth."
"Many of the solutions, such as CrowdStrike have an MDR solution where remediation can be provided by the vendor. For example, if there is any zero data threat found, a new threat that the customer is not able to recognize, fix, or understand what needs to be done this feature has to be added in FortiXDR so that the customer feels comfortable."
"They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses."
"The pricing of FortiXDR should be improved. It's a point of concern for us."
"Improvement is needed in the intuitiveness and integration measures of FortiXDR, especially in terms of compatibility."
"My client would like the solution to be more customizable without using code. You can only build on the default console, but we're not allowed to change it."
"The tool gives inconsistent answers and crashes a lot."
"The only problem I find is that the use cases are built-in. There is no template available that you can modify according to your organization's standards. What they give is very generic, the market standard, but that might not be applicable to every organization."
"From a performance standpoint, improvements could be made."
"When we do investigations, it would be better if Microsoft could populate the host dashboard more. When we open any host for investigation, we want the entire timeline of what is happening on the host, including all the users logging in, their hardware, Windows version, etc."
"At times, there may be delays in the execution of certain actions and their effects."
"The technical support from Microsoft Defender XDR has been disappointingly slow, to the point that I am considering not renewing my unified support contract."
"Microsoft Defender XDR can be improved as a solution because it's still quite costly; it's part of E5, E5 security, so the cost is still quite high, especially considering SME and C customers, or SMB customers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"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's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"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."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
"This is an expensive solution compared to other vendors, such as Check Point."
"With the little idea I have about the costs, I can say that XDR tools tend to be a bit expensive. If you are using Microsoft Defender XDR, then you need to go for a subscription-based pricing model."
"365 Defender is billed per account. I don't know the exact price, but my supervisor told me that Microsoft Defender is cheaper than the alternatives. It's bundled, so you get all the features in one place."
"I would like to have more security features in the lower licenses because not every customer is able to buy E5 licenses. The bundling isn't always easy for our customers to understand. Compared to other tools, it's a good price."
"Purchasing Microsoft Defender XDR as part of a Microsoft 365 bundle can be cost-effective, but acquiring it as a standalone product may be more expensive."
"I believe the pricing is fair and acceptable. I consider it to be reasonable and satisfactory."
"The product is fairly priced for what we get from it."
"It can be complex to navigate since customers have varying licensing agreements across Microsoft. If they go straightforward with E5 for all users, it's simple, but combinations based on budget constraints can complicate things."
"For Defender, they have Endpoint Plan 1 and Endpoint Plan 2, but I don't know on what basis they have classified Endpoint Plan 1 and Plan 2, but it has given me enough pain to pick and design Endpoint Plan 1 or Endpoint Plan 2 for my organization. In fact, we are still struggling with it. Too many SKUs are confusing. There should not be too many SKUs, and they shouldn't charge for every new feature."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise52
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise41
 

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 FortiXDR?
Comparing to the enterprise level, the pricing is reasonable. However, for some companies, it might be a little high.
What needs improvement with FortiXDR?
They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses.
What is your primary use case for FortiXDR?
We are a system integrator and cloud service provider. Although I am in sales and not technical, I am involved with t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender XDR is that we are on an E5 license,...
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
From my perspective, Microsoft Defender XDR can be improved with better visibility in certain areas where I can trigg...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft 365 Defender?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender XDR are telemetry, advanced hunting, and the ability to perform host isolati...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiXDR vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.