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Microsoft Forefront [EOL] vs VMware Carbon Black Endpoint 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
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), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Forefront [EOL]
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (26th), Security Incident Response (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (28th), Ransomware Protection (8th)
 

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.
it_user772620 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
There is simplicity in the management of the product compared to its competitors
Web proxy services along with the integrated firewall VPN Intrusion prevention Malware inspection URL filtering The simplicity of managing the product compared to its competitors, like BIG-IP F5 and Citrix NetScaler The ease of deploying mobile functionality through the web proxy has…
PM
CTO at Microsoft
Improved incident investigation has supported response while core protection still needs progress
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint does not have easy integration, as there are many complexities with the Ribitava API, which is very deep. I rate this solution overall as a five or six on a scale from one to ten. I have integrated VMware Carbon Black Endpoint with other tools that are helpful. I think this solution should be targeted at small clients, because adoption will grow more with small businesses tomorrow.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"It's a perfect solution. It integrates well into the environment."
"The best feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is that it collects logs from different sections such as the endpoint, the network, and the cloud, making it easy to investigate alerts, collect some of the investigation packages related to the infected machines, and provide live response."
"I don't have to do much monitoring with it; I don't have to have anybody manually looking at this, it gives us reports, and it lets us know if something needs to be addressed, and we can easily address it."
"Cortex XDR features advanced threat detection capabilities."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks has changed the way my security team detects, investigates, and responds to threats, as we are able to see the files, unwanted files, unsecured files, and unauthorized files, so we are quarantining them."
"The solution allows us to gain remote access without the user's knowledge and take the necessary actions on the device."
"The simplicity of managing the product compared to its competitors, like BIG-IP F5 and Citrix NetScaler, is a valuable feature."
"Product has been enough for our customers’ requirements."
"Performance wise, it's one of the most effective anti-virus solutions we have ever used."
"It has automated the entire user and group management process, thus reducing manual work and help desk cost to a great extent."
"To date we have not had a virus infecting a desktop with Forefront installed - this is the main reason why we will not use another anti-virus solution."
"Our ROI is that we can provision users accounts within 30 minutes of them being put into the system."
"The snort engine, which is the muscle behind the Sourcefire IPS technology, has always been a joy for me to work with."
"It cost us approx. US$250k to set up and is roughly US$200 day to day."
"Technical support is very effective."
"The intelligent threat hunting capabilities have impacted my customers' cybersecurity efforts by giving them the edge to be prepared well in advance."
"In our POC, we had 200 samples including ones that were available but not as popular and we received a 100% efficacy."
"​Provides visibility into the chain of attack and threats that use valid operating system processes to execute attacks.​"
"The product allows us to focus on endpoint and antivirus protection."
"It is stable and easy to set up."
"Some of the valuable features I have found are the online documentation of the solution is well organized and thorough. I like the simplicity of bypass and the visualization of the active components."
"The triage feature that shows you the whole kill chain of the attack or malware is useful because it shows how the malware gets into the endpoints and what it has done, and the solution is easy to use and easy to deploy as it is a cloud solution with no appliance needed on-premise."
 

Cons

"Managing the product should be easier."
"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."
"The solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"It would be good to have a better way to search for a file within the UI."
"Cortex XDR could be improved with more GUI features."
"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"We would also like to have advanced tech protection and email scanning."
"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"The product has unfortunately reach its End-Of-Life (EOL) at Microsoft and is now replaced by several products."
"Web user interface from 1990s. Users laugh at it."
"Without a local Windows Update Server, the client seems to update very slowly and may take a lot of time."
"More out of box connectors and conducting awareness of the product along with more marketing."
"I’d personally like to see some additional customization capabilities in the reporting section."
"Pretty awful. A large initial investment with something that could have been done by one person full time over six years with less hassle."
"One of the biggest pain points was that username changes were not automated and caused problems."
"When using Forefront in a domain network, it is quite difficult to create the group policies needed for definition/engine updates using WSUS."
"But here, we hardly can take any kind of a report out of Carbon Black, so I think that should be something that should be more user-friendly."
"The product's stability could be improved."
"Stability is one thing that's not robust. Other products are faster, but as far as the CB Defense, it's slow."
"Occasionally, we'll have issues with the latest version and they'll basically tell us that they will improve it in the next iteration. They need to work on their version release quality."
"It could be a bit complicated. You have to be very familiar with Carbon Black to understand what it is doing and why it is doing."
"Right now, I get a lot of what I call noise email alerts. All I hear from them is, "Well, we're working on it. We're working on it." Well, they've been working on it for four years now, and nothing has changed."
"I'm actually looking for a replacement because of the fact that we lost that integration."
"In my company, we face issues sometimes when there is a need to write custom rules or we want to write for some rules that are different from the standard rules provided by the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"In terms of the cost Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very expensive because we are a Mexican company and when you translate dollars to pesos the cost is very high. The solution is very expensive for Mexican companies. I understand that they have international prices, but I do not think it offsets the price enough for many companies in countries, such as Mexico. The amount it is reduced is not a massive percentage."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."
"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."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
Information not available
"The pricing is very high."
"The cost is a considerable factor, but the benefit factor is the most important. When you compare it with other products, the price is high. Carbon Black will negotiate the price."
"The solution has almost the same price as other different kinds of infrastructures, but it offers a lot of different features."
"The license is annual. It's a standard license."
"Overall, it was cost-effective too."
"​The cost/benefit factor has great relevance in Cb Defense implementations​."
"The licensing cost is on the more expensive side, but I thought it was worth it because they did a good job. It was one of the vendors I truly didn't have to worry about too much until this latest upgrade."
"It's reasonable in price"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
No data available
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise33
 

Questions from the Community

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What to choose: an endpoint antivirus, an EDR solution or both?
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What's the difference between Carbon Black CB Response and Carbon Black CB Defense?
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Carbon Black CB Defense?
My rating for the pricing of VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is that it is not cheap, but it is also not as inexpensive ...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
MS Forefront [EOL]
Carbon Black CB Defense, Bit9, Confer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
EUROVIA CS, a. s., King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Public Education Devel, Bank Alfalah Ltd., CLEAResult, St. Lucie County Public Schools, Wiltshire Council
Netflix, Progress Residential, Indeed, Hologic, Gentle Giant, Samsung Research America
Find out what your peers are saying about SentinelOne, Microsoft, CrowdStrike and others in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP). Updated: October 2026.
920,336 professionals have used our research since 2012.