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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs VMware Carbon Black Endpoint 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Cortex XDR enhances security, reduces costs, boosts threat identification, compliance, and user confidence, offering cost-effective data protection.
Sentiment score
6.0
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint delivers strong ROI with enhanced security, reducing costs and malware incidents within six months.
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
I have seen a return on investment with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, as this product is offered at a minimal cost, and we can find a good ROI from it.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Cortex XDR support is responsive and knowledgeable, despite occasional delays and regional language barriers affecting resolution times.
Sentiment score
6.3
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint support is knowledgeable but inconsistent, with varied satisfaction and room for improvement in response times.
Every vendor has similar support; it depends on how the case is handled and raised.
Their support is efficient and responsive whenever I raise a ticket through my portal.
They did well with handling high-risk threats.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cortex XDR is praised for smooth scalability, managing diverse endpoints, and effective expansion in various organizational sizes.
Sentiment score
7.3
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is highly scalable, supporting diverse environments efficiently, despite some data extraction and management complexities.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Cortex XDR is stable, with resolved bugs and ongoing improvements, earning high stability ratings from users.
Sentiment score
7.5
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint offers reliable security, but some users experience stability issues and update-related challenges for resource allocation.
For the last 11 months, we haven't faced any outage issues, so it is a stable product.
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
All the situations and issues were controlled in a good way by Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks.
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XDR struggles with compatibility, high memory usage, difficult management, limited features, and needs better integration, UI, and pricing.
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint needs better integration, UI, mobile support, pricing, responsiveness, threat detection, and stability improvements.
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.
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.
Cortex XDR could improve its sales support team, including better commission structures and referral programs.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Cortex XDR expensive, but competitive, with flexible licensing; costs vary by usage, features, and setup.
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is seen as pricey, varying by deployment size, with mixed views on its value and flexibility.
Compared to competitors such as CrowdStrike and Sophos, the pricing of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is similar to CrowdStrike but more expensive than Sophos.
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XDR offers robust endpoint security with advanced threat detection, ease of use, seamless integration, and real-time monitoring capabilities.
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint excels in threat detection, management, and integration, providing scalable and efficient security with minimal resource use.
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
The way the cases used to collect the data is not intrusive, permitting the infrastructure to collect the data and send it to the Data Lake without problems.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
5th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
9th
Ranking in Ransomware Protection
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th)
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
33rd
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
27th
Ranking in Ransomware Protection
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is 1.8%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.7%
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint1.8%
Other94.5%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

HectorRios - PeerSpot reviewer
Has detected high-risk threats effectively and provides strong behavioral protection
They did well with handling high-risk threats. I would rate Palo Alto support an eight or nine. I would give them an eight because in the majority of cases, we talk with local partners, and only in case of an emergency or a difficult issue, we jump to Palo Alto support. When we had that experience with Palo Alto support, it was nice service, but it was really difficult to get it. To jump from the partner to Palo Alto directly was challenging. I understand that it's part of the service, as the local partner just jumps up to Palo Alto support in case they need it. In some cases, when we faced an important issue, it was preferred to jump directly to Palo Alto to save time.
Nikunj Kamboj - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates well with our existing SIEM tool and helps in identifying suspicious activities
The solution's integration with our existing security infrastructure is good. Whenever we have any alert in VMware Carbon Black Endpoint, we can easily that alert in our SIEM tool and check logs from the SIEM tool itself. VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is just a secondary security tool for us, and we are just monitoring the alerts from it. The solution's behavioral analytics feature helps in identifying suspicious activities pretty well. Whenever we have even a small thing, we get an alert. The solution is deployed on the cloud in our organization. Performance-wise, the solution is doing great in terms of connecting to the host directly. Performing a malware scan usually takes a lot of time, more than 24 hours. A malware scan is something that we do only on Carbon Black for the old endpoint devices and servers. It used to take sometimes three days to perform. I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
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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 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) security solution. The CB Predictive Security Cloud platform combines multiple hi...
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 Endpoint Standard (CB Defense), and the other is the Carbon Black Endpoint Detection an...
What do you like most about Carbon Black CB Defense?
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is a highly stable solution.
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Carbon Black CB Defense, Bit9, Confer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Netflix, Progress Residential, Indeed, Hologic, Gentle Giant, Samsung Research America
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. VMware Carbon Black Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,952 professionals have used our research since 2012.