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Guardz vs Microsoft Defender XDR comparison

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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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Guardz
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
72nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (43rd), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (58th), Ransomware Protection (17th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.8%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Guardz is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 2.0%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.8%
Microsoft Defender XDR2.0%
Guardz0.5%
Other93.7%
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.
Steve Bowtell - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at Cyber Active
Exceptionally easy to integrate and covers a multitude of cybersecurity issues
The solution's interface appears very simple, but it is very complicated in the back end. So, it removes all the complications that an MSP or an MSSP would normally have. The solution's maintenance depends on whether you run it like an MDR platform where you provide the detection response part for the customer. That would normally be the MSP part. Sometimes, you have customers who are just happy to get an email and tell them what the problem is, and they fix it themselves. If there's no in-house expertise, the MSP or the MSSP can do the maintenance. If there's in-house expertise, it's just a matter of advising them. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
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

"The stability of the solution is very good. We have about 100 users on it right now, and we use it twice a week."
"I recognize that Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is one of the best products in its category regarding capabilities."
"Cortex is the best solution for avoiding security breaches, malware attacks, and other kinds of security issues."
"It's very stable. I've never experienced downtime for the ASM console or ASM core."
"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."
"I recommend this solution to others because it is easy to manage, reliable, and overall good to use."
"One thing that I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, it is detecting all the suspicious or malicious binaries, and it has integration with Palo Alto Firewall."
"Based on my experience with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, I highly recommend it due to its quick response to zero-day attacks and low utilization from end-user devices."
"The solution is exceptionally easy to integrate and covers a multitude of cybersecurity issues."
"The incident threat response and its ability to facilitate effective remediation against threats are the standout features."
"If you are considering Microsoft Defender XDR, my advice is that if you are looking for an XDR tool, Microsoft Defender XDR is the easiest to use."
"For me, the advanced hunting capabilities have been really great. It allowed querying the dataset with their own language, which is KQL or Kusto Query Language. That has allowed me to get much more insight into the events that have occurred. The whole power of 365 Defender is that you can get the whole story. It allows you to query an email-based activity and then correlate it with an endpoint-based activity."
"As a reseller and partner, the advantages of Microsoft Defender XDR are numerous; I have stopped many threats for many organizations using Defender alone, and I have saved significant IT management time by avoiding manual updates and manual work."
"365 Defender saves us a lot of money because we don't have to recover data or hire outside lawyers to help us with legal trouble."
"Microsoft Defender is stable."
"Overall, the solution has decreased our time to detect and respond."
"Overall, the comprehensiveness of the threat protection is at 95 percent."
 

Cons

"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."
"Basically, they don't provide customer support tools just to investigate the logs."
"A little bit more automation would be nice."
"If they had pulse rate detection, it would be better."
"If Palo Alto reduces the pricing slightly for their products, it would make them more scalable in markets such as India and globally for cybersecurity."
"The configuration could be simplified. I would like to see better protection, specifically to protect email applications."
"I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response). Then it would work well with SIEM Response."
"If he is using a smaller company, he can depend on some other tools because Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a bit expensive."
"The solution's security awareness training and phishing are very United States-focused and don't work very well in Australia."
"The data recovery and backup could be improved."
"I haven't really come across the incident Q assistant helping improve the efficiency of my SOC workflow."
"Intrusion detection and prevention would be great to have with 365 Defender."
"There is definitely scope for improvement in the automation area. Because the solution is a SaaS platform, we don't have the overall ability to automate stuff.... There is no direct way to go ahead because it's a SaaS platform."
"The solution can improve the rules and privileges it offers."
"Every now and then, Microsoft Defender XDR seems to go through and aggregates almost a week's worth of incidents and wraps them up, indicating a huge problem."
"The customer support aspect can be better because it's the biggest complaint I hear about Microsoft. They can improve the ease of support and licensing processes."
"It would be highly beneficial if CoPilot could identify anomalies within the network and notify the IT team."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"I like Guardz's pricing model because it's very cost-effective and has no long-term commitments."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is priced high."
"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."
"We've managed to navigate it effectively through our enterprise agreement, and Microsoft's academic discounts have proven to be quite generous."
"Microsoft 365 Defender offers competitive pricing."
"They have moved from a licensing model to pay-per-use... The question is: What happens if, for any reason, there's not enough budget to accept this model? That could be a great problem."
"It has consistently offered highly appealing academic pricing, with distinct rates for higher education and general educational purposes."
"Licensing is somewhat confusing, particularly when presenting our pitch decks to stakeholders and leveraging key features in premium SKUs, but we managed with some assistance from Microsoft."
"Defender plan 1 is tenant-wise, and Defender plan 2 is per-user, which makes it more expensive. To have certain features, you would need to purchase the E5 license. For all of the capabilities that the tool provides, the price, though it can be high, is fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise57
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
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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...
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 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 CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft and others in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.