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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Stellar Cyber Open 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...
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Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
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) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
Stellar Cyber Open XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
57th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (44th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (27th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (16th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (24th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (20th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (38th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) 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 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 5.9%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Stellar Cyber Open XDR is 1.0%, up from 0.4% 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 Endpoint5.9%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.5%
Stellar Cyber Open XDR1.0%
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.
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.
Hrishiraj Bhattacharjee - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder & CEO at Team Karimganj
Correlates incidents, allows for quicker identification and helps prioritize investigations
The only challenge is, and that’s where we come into play, it’s a pretty high-tech platform. So, it’s difficult for small and medium-sized organizations to manage it on their own. It’s a very complex system. It requires a lot of expertise. All my guys who work on it have gone through certification from Stellar itself. There are three different certifications that you need to complete. Only then are you certified by Stellar to work on it. It’s a very complex platform. Not everyone can use it. A simple IT engineer or system admin won’t be able to handle it because it’s quite complex. You need to have an understanding of the industry, the subject, and the tool. So, just purchasing this tool or license and then using it on your own would be very difficult to configure and manage on a day-to-day basis. The pricing model is not suitable for small and medium companies, particularly small companies. The minimum pricing model they have is suitable for companies with more than one thousand users. So, if someone has 50 to 100 users, like typical small companies, it’s difficult for them because the cost involved is high. Stellar would charge you for those thousand users, but you do not need all those users. So what are they going to do? I guess Stellar does not want to target small companies directly and maybe relies on resellers and MSPs like us to sell it. So, that is something I would recommend changing. Otherwise, it’s a great tool, but because of the pricing model, small companies are unable to leverage the advantage of this beautiful tool. So, the pricing model should be suitable for small and medium businesses. The product currently has vulnerability monitoring and everything. But if they could also do something about vulnerability management and maybe patch management, that would be nice.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is the low consumption of system resources. The solution uses a lot of AI and machine learning."
"The behavior-based detection feature is valuable."
"The tool is easy to use."
"The multi-layered approach to the product gives you confidence that it will stop exploits, ransomware, worms, or viruses from compromising endpoints, essentially providing peace of mind."
"Its interface and pricing are most valuable, and it is better than other vendors in terms of security."
"I like that the product has behavior-based detection which offers many benefits over signature-based detection."
"Being a cloud solution it is very flexible in serving internal and external connections and a broad range of devices."
"The scalability of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very good."
"It is very stable, highly recommended, free with the purchase of Windows Server, and it is doing its job for Microsoft Windows Server as a good product."
"The attack surface reduction rules are the most valuable. We're able to have unattended remediation actions when the solution works side by side with a local antivirus like Microsoft Defender or Kaspersky. The attack surface reduction rules help us to proactively block and stop threats."
"It's a stable solution."
"This is the best feature of having OneDrive backup on the fly and recovery on the fly."
"Most people don't realize M365/E5 licenses are an amazing deal."
"The features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that I prefer most are the detections. It just works."
"The features I have found most valuable are the ransomware and malware protection. The solution detects malware live and whenever it detects suspicious activity, it quarantines it."
"The most likable feature of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the sheer number of features and data it provides."
"It can integrate with almost any cybersecurity tool available in the market."
"Stellar Cyber Open XDR offers these functionalities at a more affordable price, making it easier for me to position it with price-sensitive customers."
 

Cons

"It is not very strong in terms of endpoint management. It should have additional features like DLP, encryption, or advanced device control. Currently, Cortex is good in terms of the security of the endpoints, but it is not as good as other vendors in terms of the management of the endpoint."
"The solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is not only pricey; it is extremely expensive."
"Dashboards do not allow everyone to see what's happening."
"Basically, they don't provide customer support tools just to investigate the logs."
"The solution lacks real-time, on-demand antivirus."
"A potential area of improvement for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is the cost."
"The downside to the solution is that there are a large number of false positives."
"The automation could be simpler on the mitigation side. It has a learning curve. Otherwise, it's pretty easy."
"The UI for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint needs to be better."
"The central console needs improvement. Both McAfee and Symantec antivirus have dashboards. These integrate with a server and work on my antivirus or some other product. However, with Microsoft Defender, you use Microsoft Group Policy Object. Defender does not provide a central console. Therefore, if you implement Defender, then maybe use another tool for the central view."
"Their support could be faster through the phone. The support through chat is very unuseful; it takes a lot of time and effort and does not help in any way."
"Sometimes it is a little lacking, but for the most part, they are able to provide exactly what I need."
"The pricing could be a bit better."
"Features like device inventory continue to lack essential workstation drill-downs showing the entire device information with the least effort."
"It is currently more suitable for end-users rather than enterprises with lots of other processes and third-party tools. It needs improvement on that front. We had many issues while integrating it with our enterprise solutions, such as Splunk, and third-party tools. It provides everything via APIs. Other vendors provide integration with third-party tools, but Microsoft doesn't do that. It is also logging too much and is not serialized from the process aspect. It has all the data, but it is not in a proper format or not properly indexed, which doesn't make it easier for enterprises to use this data. Other vendors provide troubleshooting information that can be used to troubleshoot issues, but Microsoft doesn't provide anything like that."
"I would rate the stability at about five to six. The platform requires some fine-tuning, especially when integrating data sources and creating connectors."
"Support is an issue because they have a limited number of resources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a yearly renewal."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."
"I did PoCs on products called Cylance and CrowdStrike. Although, I consider these products and they were also good, when it come to cost and budgetary factors, Traps has been proven to be better than the other two products. It is quite cost-effective and delivers all the entire solution which we require."
"I do not have to purchase antivirus solutions anymore because Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is integrated into Windows and comes free."
"It is built into Windows 10. If our clients are using Microsoft Defender, the cost goes away for them."
"When compared with other vendors, the pricing is very high."
"The pricing is competitive."
"We are using the free version."
"The E5 license is the one that I recommend because it comes with Cloud App Security, which is a good thing to have on top of Microsoft Defender."
"We have seen ROI. Most of the other competing alternatives will cost up to around $30 per user device. We average 400 devices. Therefore, the amount that we save each year is 400 times $30."
"Because Microsoft Defender comes as an add-on, it can be a bit expensive if you're trying to buying it separately. Another option is to upgrade, but the enterprise licenses for Microsoft can also be quite a bit pricey. Overall, the cost of Microsoft Defender compared to that of other endpoint detection solutions is slightly higher."
"It’s a single license platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise96
No data available
 

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,...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Stellar Cyber Open XDR?
Pricing is a major benefit of Stellar Cyber Open XDR. I rate it between three and four on the cost scale. It offers f...
What needs improvement with Stellar Cyber Open XDR?
I am currently evaluating Stellar Cyber Open XDR in terms of their support. I do not see any major areas for improvem...
What is your primary use case for Stellar Cyber Open XDR?
I use Stellar Cyber Open XDR ( /products/stellar-cyber-open-xdr-reviews ) as a 24/7 security monitoring tool, especia...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Sumitomo Chemical USA, PlastiPak Packaging, University of Denver, Large California State Agency, Large Midwestern American City
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Stellar Cyber Open XDR and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.