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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Malwarebytes comparison

 

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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th)
Malwarebytes
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.9%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Malwarebytes is 1.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammad Qaw - PeerSpot reviewer
Perfect correlation and XDR capabilities for network traffic plus endpoint security
The solution should force customers to integrate with network traffic to see the full benefits of XDR. If you are not integrating it or feeding in your network traffic, then you are just buying a normal antivirus which doesn't make any sense. You are paying double the price to use the antivirus feature or to say you have XDR, but in reality you are not using it. The solution should include an on-premises option because some customers want only on-premises. It would be hard, but good to do if possible. Open XDR would be beneficial in the future. Right now, the solution is Closed XDR so cannot communicate with the few new vendors in the Open XDR market.
Anas Anas - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective threat predictions, simple to deploy, and light on resources
Malwarebytes's initial setup is simple. It is easy to deploy and configure the policies and the configuration. I deployed Malwarebytes for one customer and I did it in under two days. They had approximately 50 users, it took approximately an hour. The steps I took for the implementation were downloading the Malwarebytes management console from the site, installing it, then running the discovery tool, scanning my network, and checking all of the PCs on my network. It's already pre-configured, you don't need to configure anything. The only configuration that I did on the administration console was some of the exclusion from the scan. This is the only rule that I have created. I rate the initial setup of Malwarebytes a ten out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very stable. I've never experienced downtime for the ASM console or ASM core."
"Traps has drastically reduced our endpoint attack surface via advanced detection capabilities, sandboxing of never before seen programs, and by drastically limiting where executables can launch in the first place."
"The information the dashboard provides is very clear."
"It is an easy-to-use tool."
"The protection offered by this product is good, as is the endpoint reporting."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"The product has an intuitive dashboard."
"From a single pane of glass, you can easily manage all of your endpoints."
"It gets the job done, and they are consistently updating it monthly."
"It allows us to have better knowledge of the way people use the tool and how we can improve their workflows."
"This solution helps us by providing central management of anti-malware and anti-exploit functionality."
"The solution is very good at scanning."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that I can use it wherever I want, be it at the office, at home, or even outside."
"Ten times a day, improved signatures will be downloaded, so it is very up-to-date in terms of malware experience."
"It is intuitive and easy to use. For the most part, it does a good job of catching things. It is good at stopping stuff. I did a couple of tests with a password cracker. I tried to load that on, and Malwarebytes didn't let me do that, which was pretty good. It has a rollback feature that I haven't seen with any other company. If one of your endpoints are hit with mass ransomware, you could actually roll it back. I watched a demo of them do that, and it was pretty sweet."
"Provides successful ransomware shut down operations."
 

Cons

"Being able to filter the events to see those that are related to the actual alert would save time spent by the engineer."
"It is an enterprise-level solution. Its price could be less expensive."
"When it comes to malware files, it should be a little quick because, at times, it would give a wrong result in the sense of what it might be on malware, even if it still might be a normal one."
"Previously, the endpoint would leave the environment, not being on our VPN, essentially unable to interact with the server to upload files. It was unable to retrieve new file verdicts. It was using a thing called "local analysis" to determine if something was a malicious file or not. There was no dynamic analysis."
"The dashboard could use some significant improvement, just making it more useful with more information. It has a limited amount of information right now. It is customizable, but I'd love to see a better out-of-box dashboard."
"Cortex XDR could improve its sales support team, including better commission structures and referral programs."
"It is not a suitable solution if you are looking for a single product with multiple features such as DLP, encryption, rollback, etc."
"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"Malwarebytes is too simplistic. From a SOC IR perspective, it doesn't give you very much data around it. It doesn't tie things or provide SHA-1 and SHA-256 detection information, which makes it hard to do an additional investigation."
"Requires increased efficiency in terms of detecting false positives."
"Overall, I haven't found any ways the solution lacks in features or usability."
"The product update capability needs to be improved."
"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."
"If they want to compete with bigger players, they should consider adding items like threat detection and website warnings."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel it is fairly priced."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"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."
"Licensing for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR can be costly, especially when it comes to a hundred users. A license is required for each user, and the subscription must be renewed on a yearly basis."
"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."
"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"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."
"Malwarebytes is a cost-effective product."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the product's pricing a seven."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"I would say that it's affordable. It costs much less than Sentinel One, CrowdStrike, or anything of that nature. But, at the same time, you are getting what you pay for. So I would say it's one of the best when you're comparing traditional NextGen AVs like Webroot that aren't the best in the bunch."
"We expect to pay $1,000 USD a month, depending on the number of users."
"The cost may be something in the ballpark of $20-25 a year per computer."
"Its licensing is annual. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
University
12%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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. The ability to reverse damage caused by ransomware with minimal interruptions to...
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 that are very scalable, secure, and user-friendly. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto offers ...
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, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
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 least confirm with me, like a month before they bill me.
What needs improvement with Malwarebytes?
It takes up too much space when it's trying to run in the background.
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Knutson Construction
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Malwarebytes and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.