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USM Anywhere vs VMware Carbon Black Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.9
Cortex XDR reduces security incidents, personnel needs, and costs, offering quick ROI, enhanced performance, and competitive pricing.
Sentiment score
6.8
USM Anywhere enhances security, saves time and resources, reduces staffing needs, and meets compliance, offering financial and time benefits.
Sentiment score
5.2
VMware Carbon Black Cloud offers cost savings, improved security, centralized protection, better efficiency, and quick ROI with automation features.
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks helps to reduce my total cost of ownership significantly.
Detection and Response Consultant at Inovasys
In Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, most of the remediation is automated and the accuracy is quite good.
Network Security Engineer at Cyberwell Solution
Customers see ROI as they save on staff and other resources.
Co-Founder/Director at Bangkok MSP Company Limited
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Cortex XDR support is effective and fast but faces issues with language, delays, and high costs, yet generally satisfactory.
Sentiment score
8.0
USM Anywhere's customer service is generally praised for responsiveness but experiences occasional delays and inconsistent support information.
Sentiment score
6.2
VMware Carbon Black Cloud's support is effective but could improve regionally, with mixed customer satisfaction and costly services.
The technical support from Palo Alto deserves a mark of ten because they reach out within an hour whenever assistance is needed.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
There is no back and forth, and they know what we are asking for and come up with the best resolution for a solution.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
If any of these services are missed, it becomes a problem in terms of support tickets, follow-up, or special configuration that needs to be done in the system.
Chief of IT Architecture at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cortex XDR is scalable, supports diverse enterprises, integrates with endpoints, and enables easy expansion with cloud infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.5
USM Anywhere is scalable for small to medium businesses, but enterprise-scale deployments face data volume and speed challenges.
Sentiment score
7.1
VMware Carbon Black Cloud is praised for its scalability and effectiveness in large environments, with minor integration suggestions.
You can onboard 10,000 endpoints in just hours, which demonstrates the excellent scalability of this product.
Assistant Security Architect at Cloudnomics
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be expanded anytime by purchasing another license without any issues related to scalability.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
I think scalability for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is good.
Threat Analyst II at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
USM Anywhere faces scalability issues because of a 60 TB limit.
Co-Founder/Director at Bangkok MSP Company Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Cortex XDR is highly regarded for stability, reliable performance, and well-received updates, despite minor occasional disruptions.
Sentiment score
7.2
USM Anywhere receives mixed stability reviews, with some users praising its reliability and others reporting issues during updates or large data handling.
Sentiment score
7.0
VMware Carbon Black Cloud is stable, with minor issues, resolves bugs quickly, but needs better support and availability for large deployments.
Cortex remains fast and responsive, even with increasing data and alerts.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The thresholds we've seen on our firewall boxes at some instances reached 80% to 85%, but even at that level of utilization, we don't observe any latency or any issues reported with respect to accessing the application.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XDR requires enhancements in UI, integration, reporting, and pricing, while addressing false positives and improving automation and mobile support.
USM Anywhere needs improved performance, user interface, integration, and support, with better updates and less disruptive software changes.
VMware Carbon Black Cloud struggles with intelligence, usability, performance issues, inadequate support, and high costs, affecting its efficiency.
Improving reporting and dashboard customization, along with the addition of real-time and exportable reports, would help SOC teams greatly.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
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.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
If the per GB data could be provided at a certain level free of cost or at the same cost which the customer is taking for the entire bundle, that would be better.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
There are scalability issues due to a 60 TB limit, which restricts its use for large customers like banks.
Co-Founder/Director at Bangkok MSP Company Limited
I recall we couldn't upgrade because the sensor was not compatible, and the latest VMware Carbon Black Cloud version was not compatible with the latest Red Hat version.
Sec consultant at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Cortex XDR offers flexible pricing from $55 to $90 per endpoint annually, considered cost-effective for its advanced features.
USM Anywhere offers scalable, affordable SIEM solutions ideal for SMBs, recommended for budget-conscious enterprises over costly competitors.
VMware Carbon Black Cloud offers varied pricing experiences, but users often secure competitive rates through resellers with few surprises.
The pricing on SentinelOne is far more reasonable and cheaper than Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks.
Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would say it is definitely not a cheap product, considering how mature it is and how scalable all Palo Alto products are together.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
The pricing is amazing and really cheap.
Co-Founder/Director at Bangkok MSP Company Limited
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XDR provides advanced threat detection with AI analytics, real-time blocking, and seamless integration for enhanced security.
USM Anywhere offers event correlation, vulnerability scanning, and centralized logging with customizable, user-friendly security monitoring for small teams.
VMware Carbon Black Cloud provides endpoint isolation, threat detection, and real-time protection with minimal disruption and efficient threat management.
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
It includes machine learning to easily analyze data and detect complex threats across endpoints, networks, or clouds.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The 365-day block query is a major feature.
Co-Founder/Director at Bangkok MSP Company Limited
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
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Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
USM Anywhere
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
44th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (37th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (30th), Compliance Management (13th)
VMware Carbon Black Cloud
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
55th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.4%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of USM Anywhere is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Carbon Black Cloud is 0.4%, up from 0.2% 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 Networks3.4%
USM Anywhere0.8%
VMware Carbon Black Cloud0.4%
Other95.4%
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.
Kris Nawani - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder/Director at Bangkok MSP Company Limited
Offers complete coverage without the need to install additional software
USM Anywhere is used for threat detection and investigation. It provides a solution with built-in threat intelligence and various other investigation tools The solution offers complete coverage without the need to install additional software, as it is maintained by the vendor. It helps in saving…
reviewer2771742 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sec consultant at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has supported consistent deployment across departments but needs better OS compatibility and detection performance
I am not really looking for a new solution, actually, I was preparing for an interview and wanted to have a comparison between both tools. I have not worked with any of these products before, but we had a training demonstration yesterday with Dynatrace, and I have investigated the Wiz solution better. In terms of experience, it will be my first time with CDR. I am working with something for EDR, specifically, we have an EDR, it's VMware Carbon Black Cloud. They have a hybrid environment, both on-prem and cloud. I would usually recommend this product for big companies, because it's not cheap, so only big companies would I expect to pay for that. The review rating for VMware Carbon Black Cloud is 6 out of 10.
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Top Industries

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

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 Business64
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

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 AT&T AlienVault USM?
There are scalability issues due to a 60 TB limit, which restricts its use for large customers like banks. It is also...
What is your primary use case for AT&T AlienVault USM?
USM Anywhere is used for threat detection and investigation. It provides a solution with built-in threat intelligence...
What to choose: an endpoint antivirus, an EDR solution or both?
I can recommend Carbon Black, an award-winning next-gen anti-virus (NGAV) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) s...
What's the difference between Carbon Black CB Response and Carbon Black CB Defense?
Carbon Black offers two different levels of Endpoint Detection and Response. One is the VM Carbon Black Cloud Endpoin...
What needs improvement with Carbon Black CB Response?
I see room for improvement as I remember some problems on compatibility with some operating systems; I recall we coul...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
AT&T AlienVault USM, AlienVault, AlienVault USM, Alienvault Cybersecurity
Carbon Black CB Response
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Abel & Cole, Bank of Ireland, Bluegrass Cellular, CareerBuilder, Claire's, Hays Medical Center, Hope International, McCurrach, McKinsey & Company, Party Delights, Pepco Holdings, Richland School District, Ricoh, SaveMart, Shake Shack, Steelcase, TaxAct, Taylor Morrison, Vonage and Zoom
ALLETE belk
Find out what your peers are saying about USM Anywhere vs. VMware Carbon Black Cloud and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.