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Hunters 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 Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Hunters
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
33rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (37th), SOC as a Service (6th)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (9th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.7%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hunters is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 3.5%, down from 5.8% 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 Networks4.7%
Microsoft Defender XDR3.5%
Hunters0.9%
Other90.9%
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.
VikramSingh8 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Delivery Manager at Accenture
Advanced detectors streamline threat monitoring with many use cases
Hunter support is functional yet not exceptional. Their support engineers could be more advanced and faster in providing solutions. Their turnaround time could improve to match other tools. When feedback is provided, they consider it and indicate if it is in the development stage. They commit to fixing bugs and developing the module or feature, however, take quite a lot of time. I would rate their customer support as needing improvement. Another area needing improvement is integration capabilities, as they are not yet fully compatible. Users still have to rely on third-party software or integration tools. Furthermore, they should incorporate more GenAI capabilities, a current buzzword, and enable predictive use cases. Their tools should be capable of reading the environment, making adaptations, and automatically tweaking settings as per client or environmental needs, similar to capabilities provided by other SIEM tools.
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

"Cortex XDR lets us manage several clients from the same console, and its endpoint defense is more advanced than traditional antivirus."
"On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks a nine."
"Technical support is the best in class, in my opinion, because they have invested heavily in research and development."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks should be a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature is that you can select remote access of any machine for sandboxing."
"The most valuable for us is the correlation feature."
"Cortex covers everything I need. It's a perfect solution. Cortex provides a different level of visibility because it's an extended EDR, allowing you to grab logs from the network and firewalls. Palo Alto invented the concept of the extended EDR or XDR."
"The tool is easy to use."
"Hunter proactively provides a set of five to six hundred use cases, categorized based on cloud use cases, endpoint use cases, parameter use cases, and malicious use cases."
"Other SIEM tools base their license cost on the volume of data processed, often charging by how much TB or GB data is processed. Hunter, however, charges based on the number of data sources and the number of data entities integrated, which saves money."
"Setting up Microsoft 365 Defender is easy. It's a user-friendly solution that provides threat protection. It has good stability and scalability."
"The most valuable feature is the network security."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable."
"Defender XDR offers richer insights into Defender XDR. It's a better overall experience."
"Instead of an hour, it takes five or 10 minutes now; it's a lifesaver for me and keeps my clients from being threatened and attacked every day."
"We use Microsoft 365 Defender to help secure threats of the Office package, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and additionally, it can fix issues."
"The best feature is probably the alert generation. When I do a security reset, the other session triggers instantly from the Defender console, and I can work on it. The policies are three times, but they are also ready to install it."
"The product is very easy to use."
 

Cons

"The onboarding process could be better."
"The GUI could be improved. It's a little bit cumbersome. It could be more user-friendly."
"A little bit more automation would be nice."
"For Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, if I had to point out improvements, I would say the UI is still somewhat difficult for beginners."
"I recommend adding a data loss prevention (DLP) solution to Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of DLP policies alongside antivirus policies via a single agent and console, making it more competitive as other OEMs often offer DLP solutions as part of their antivirus products."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management. It would be useful to look at the client's issue to fix it."
"It should support more mobile operating systems. That is one of the cons of their infrastructure right now."
"In some cases, there are too many options for me, and it is a bit too hard to find some settings which I really need to implement."
"Hunter support is functional yet not exceptional."
"Hunter support is functional yet not exceptional. Their support engineers could be more advanced and faster in providing solutions."
"Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected."
"We should be able to use the product on devices like Apple, Linux, etc."
"Intrusion detection and prevention would be great to have with 365 Defender."
"The message trace feature for investigating mail flow issues should add more detailed information to the summary report... if they could extend the summary report a little bit, make it more descriptive, ordinary administrators could understand what happened and that the emails failed at this or that point. That way they would know the location to go to try to correct it and to prevent it from occurring again."
"There are still some components, such as vulnerability management within the vendor product, where improved integration would be beneficial."
"The price could be better. It'll also help if they can continuously update and upgrade the solution. Every day there's a new virus uploaded into the network, and we have to keep updating it to identify all these things."
"There is no comprehensive visibility, making it less user-friendly."
"The tool gives inconsistent answers and crashes a lot."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"It's the most expensive solution, but features-wise, it's quite strong. It's very good for protection, so the results are very good in the case of protection. I would rate it a two out of ten in terms of pricing."
"Very costly product."
"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"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."
"I don't recall what the cost was, but it wasn't really that expensive."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
Information not available
"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."
"It has consistently offered highly appealing academic pricing, with distinct rates for higher education and general educational purposes."
"Microsoft is not competitive with the pricing of the solution. The competitors are able to offer lower discounts. The price of the solution is higher."
"I find the pricing to be quite competitive, especially considering its inclusion in our E5 subscription, which provides a comprehensive set of functionalities."
"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."
"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."
"While the standalone price of Defender XDR might seem high, its value becomes clear when considering the ease of implementation and smooth integration with our existing Microsoft infrastructure, especially when bundled with other Microsoft products."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
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
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 Hunters?
Hunter support is functional yet not exceptional. Their support engineers could be more advanced and faster in provid...
What is your primary use case for Hunters?
Hunter is a very new SIEM in the market. It is definitely a broad market for us as they are trying to establish a new...
What advice do you have for others considering Hunters?
Their knowledge base is good. When starting with Hunter, ensure you have one or two sessions to understand navigation...
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
Hunters.AI
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
We're happy to support organizations like Booking.com, ChargePoint, Yext, Red Ventures and Cimpress who leverage Hunters SOC Platform to transform their security teams' operations.
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about SentinelOne, TrendAI, Palo Alto Networks and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.