Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Malwarebytes Teams vs Symantec Endpoint Security comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

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 Protection Platform (EPP)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
Malwarebytes Teams
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Endpoint Security
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
146
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.5%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Malwarebytes Teams is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Endpoint Security is 3.3%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.5%
Symantec Endpoint Security3.3%
Malwarebytes Teams2.1%
Other91.1%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

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.
reviewer2594097 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at a wholesaler/distributor with 11-50 employees
Exceptional malware protection with regular updates and behavior-based detection
There are no built-in backups or integrated backup options, which could be an opportunity. The free version is effective, however, the paid version is pricey compared to it. Other customers have mentioned issues with false positives. It lacks enterprise-level management and more enterprise functionality. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are much more enterprise-grade solutions. Malwarebytes has limited integration with cybersecurity tools and lacks enterprise integrations because it is not an enterprise product.
Kumbesh Rajagopal - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Delivery Analyst at Accenture
Management becomes easier with minimal complications, but improvement in support tools needed
Regarding areas of improvement for Symantec Endpoint Security, there are many changes, and the support portal tool is complicated compared to other tools. When trying to get service from Symantec, the process is complex. I'm not sure whether it's because of my project or something else. Though it is easy to manage, easy to get, easy to install, and works efficiently for managing policies, we faced a significant disadvantage. We wanted to add multiple hashes because of numerous new alerts coming, but we could only add them one by one, which is a considerable disadvantage in Symantec.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cortex XDR can integrate the firewalls and determine the tendencies of the attacks. It's a new generation antivirus, with protection endpoints and detection response. It is very easy to use and everybody can operate the solution."
"The stability of this product is very good."
"If any application performs suspicious activities, such as changing registries or modifying other applications, Cortex XDR detects and blocks the entire application."
"If the user leaves our premises or network, Palo Alto Traps will still be on that endpoint and will still apply our policies."
"We have a complete overview of all our PCs and it's very easy to handle and to use the interface. It has a lot of benefits for us."
"The tool is designed to scale for large enterprises and handle large volumes of data."
"It'll not slow down your system when compared to others."
"After installing this solution, it identified, blocked, and provided the complete attack chain, which was very helpful."
"The dashboard actually is good and it is simple."
"The most valuable features of the solution are malware scanning and malware removal."
"The solution has a good management interface."
"I never have to look at it or do anything with it, and then my system just stays clean."
"The protection is really good with Malwarebytes. It's also user friendly and quite easy to set up."
"The technical support services are good."
"The product provides notifications for suspicious events. We have several public access points. The product helps to prevent unauthorized entry. Its most valuable features are pre-installation procedures and a cloud console. The console's interface is simple and can be viewed easily to take action. It covers everything in terms of security threats."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution's application control feature is very, very powerful."
"Symantec have everything – documentation, videos, data sheets."
"The product has valuable features for insights."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Endpoint Security are endpoint protection, antivirus, firewall, and policy creation."
"It's a single-agent installation with many features including wireless protection."
"The dashboard view and reporting are valuable. It is stable and easy to integrate, and it provides custom options."
"This solution helps in that I can control quite a few computers from our central location, with ease."
"The features are very nice. We are getting updates continuously from the Symantec side regarding any attacks, such as zero-day attacks. Symantec helps us in mitigating any attacks or threats early."
 

Cons

"Dashboards do not allow everyone to see what's happening."
"I think sometimes Cortex XDR agent automatically stops event capturing from the device, and then even the dashboard does not get any notifications from the agent."
"Managing the product should be easier."
"Cortex XDR could improve its sales support team, including better commission structures and referral programs."
"There is a severe gap in functionality between Windows, Linux, and Mac versions. For example all folder restriction settings are Windows only. Traps 5.0+ does not have SAML / LDAP integration."
"When it comes to core analysis, and security analysis, Cortex needs to provide more information."
"We have found that there are times Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks does not detect some of the viruses, we have to use another protection solution called Kaspersky."
"Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR does not detect malicious activity like in other anti-virus solutions like Trend Micro and Windows with Cisco."
"Notifications are lacking."
"My clients have frequently encountered some tech support scams where when you go to a particular website, it throws up a fake warning to you and states that you need to call this number."
"I would like to see integration with other vendors going forward."
"Malwarebytes can improve its network database. Malwarebytes can scan the files and registry. It can scan the system with a light agent. It will not impact the performance of your PC. You can do the full scan and database scan using the EDR, and the RAM and CPU consumption will not increase."
"The product's stability needs improvement."
"The EPP solution lacks the sophisticated artificial intelligence required for automating reports and letting you know about things in real-time. It stops a suspicious activity in real-time, but it doesn't let you know in real-time. You have to look at a report, and then you find out that something is wrong. You have to manually kick off a scan. With the Advanced EDR solutions, Malwarebytes has the ability to alert you in real-time, but they still don't do automatic remediation or quarantining of devices. That is something that you still have to do manually. So, the endpoint protection piece, which is just like their basic endpoint protection, lacks AI. For the advanced detection and response piece, there is an add-on that comes with it, but it still doesn't go far enough in terms of automatic remediation of viruses. It won't separate that virus from your network if something happens. You have to manually go there and do it."
"They can include advanced scanning and improve reporting. I scan malware on the pen drive. Some more reports need to be added for that. It should also provide better protection because we have a new version of the malware."
"A solution must be installed in the main gateway to give an overview of the incoming and outgoing traffic. The technical support team's response time should be faster."
"It is only available to use on computers with higher-end specs."
"The solution's reporting could be improved."
"Every time an OS comes out, I have to upgrade the Symantec product. They don't know how to patch it. If they would produce a patch instead of uninstalling or installing over the current version and rebooting I'd be a lot happier with the product."
"Nowadays, threats are changing, and they are moving more towards script control and zero-day attacks. So, we would like to have more control similar to an EDR solution. Symantec Endpoint Protection has certainly come a long way as a traditional antivirus, but because the threats are changing, we would like to have more EDR features so that we have a detailed view of the source from where the infection entered the environment and whether it has tried to connect any other endpoint. It should provide such a detailed view for investigation. It should protect against zero-day threats, etc. These are the key enhancements that can make it a complete solution for any enterprise. Currently, we have seen organizations going for two solutions: antivirus and EDR. With both these capabilities, it would be a complete package."
"It would be helpful if this product provided patch management functionality."
"Sometimes, when we are creating a new policy, some of the clients are not being updated with the latest policy."
"Managements' number one item on the "Wish List" would have to do with the real-time scan of external media inserted into any client."
"If a machine is infected by ransomware, it's hard to recover the data. We don't have any data on the client, so we're not overly concerned about that. Still, it would be nice to have this feature if there are any future problems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"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."
"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."
"Very costly product."
"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."
"Its cost is around $60 a machine. The cost of the total solution for 250 people is about $8,500 a year. If we add EDR to it, it will bring that cost up to about $15,000. The cost for Carbon Black is about $25,000, which is $10,000 more, but you get all AI functions with it."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"It is expensive."
"The licensing is per seat, with clients being a little less expensive than servers. If we need more licenses, we can accomplish that within a day. As Malwarebytes adds new features to their product, such as DNS filtering and a patching module, they want to charge us more even though we're a premium user, which isn't ideal."
"It is really expensive. We've got between 30 and 40 licenses every year, and for the number of licenses that we have, we're finding that Malwarebytes on average costs between $900 and $1,000 more per year than comparable options. We're paying about $3,300 per year for these licenses. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"The cost may be something in the ballpark of $20-25 a year per computer."
"I believe the retail price is between $40 and $50 per copy."
"The platform pricing is competitive with other antivirus products."
"Symantec Endpoint Security's pricing is okay. It is cheaper compared to other products."
"I rate the product's pricing a six out of ten."
"The prices fluctuate, but this year I think it was maybe around $12,000."
"Licensing is per user. Therefore, it makes it easy to do licensing."
"It is normal. If you are an educational institute, they give you a very good discount. If you are coming from the banking side, they may or may not give you a discount. I'm working with seven companies, and normally, they get a 65% to 70% discount on everything."
"It is the better product, even if it is a little on the higher side."
"Its price should be reasonable."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are best for your needs.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
10%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business69
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise63
 

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 do you like most about Malwarebytes?
Ten times a day, improved signatures will be downloaded, so it is very up-to-date in terms of malware experience.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Malwarebytes?
I really hate the automatic rebilling without officially confirming it with me. It's an annoyance and they should at ...
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes?
It takes up too much space when it's trying to run in the background.
Which is better - Cortex XDR or Symantec End-User Endpoint Security?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valu...
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...
What do you like most about Symantec End-User Endpoint Security?
Symantec have everything – documentation, videos, data sheets.
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
Symantec EPP, Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Knutson Construction
Audio Visual Dynamics, Red Deer Advocate, Asia Pacific Telecom Co. Ltd., Kibbutz Ein Gedi, and AMETEK, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Malwarebytes Teams vs. Symantec Endpoint Security and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.