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Datto Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) vs Microsoft Defender XDR 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Datto Endpoint Detection an...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
42nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 Datto Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is 1.3%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 2.6%, down from 2.9% 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%
Microsoft Defender XDR2.6%
Datto Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)1.3%
Other92.7%
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.
reviewer2406663 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Effective risk response, easy deployment, and enhanced security
They use Datto EDR as part of the solutions that we supply Datto EDR has helped reduce overall security incident costs by fifteen percent. The ease of deployment has been good, and the responsiveness of the application to risks has been quite effective. The inclusion of web filtering would be…
Shivam Dhang - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Infrastructure & Cloud Manager at Softcell Technologies Limited
Unified security view has reduced incident response time and improves cross-domain threat hunting
From a customer perspective, given that we are using Microsoft Defender XDR at a company with multiple cloud environments, I would like to see more intelligent alert tuning. Sometimes we still get noise, so better prioritization would help. I also wish the advanced hunting interface was more streamlined, especially for large-scale queries. Finally, deeper integrations with third-party tools would help us get a more complete picture across our stack. Onboarding can be complex if Microsoft 365 identity and endpoints are not properly aligned. Initial setup requires good planning. Overall, the platform is strong, but onboarding should be planned according to your specific needs.

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 for us is the correlation feature."
"The anti-exploit is impenetrable. We chose Traps because it is the only product that we were not able to get anything past."
"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."
"We have a complete overview of all our PCs and it's very easy to handle and to use the interface."
"Implementing Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks has had a significant impact on my security analyst workload because it becomes much easier."
"Palo Alto is one of the tech vendors that always provides top-of-the-line products."
"Monitoring is most valuable."
"We use it for malicious connections from malicious websites, to identify payloads that might be inside the traffic, to identify malicious processes or bugs that are running on the network, and any activities that tend to lead to data infiltration."
"The ease of deployment has been good."
"The most valuable feature of Datto EDR is the visibility of the endpoints."
"The insight that the solution provides is the most valuable aspect. The security scanning they do is excellent."
"The insight that the solution provides is the most valuable aspect."
"Datto Endpoint Detection and Response is a perfect product for endpoint security."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable."
"The summarization of emails is a valuable feature."
"The best feature is threat hunting. There are a lot of other features I like, such as the alert mechanism. The chain alert mechanism has a huge impact. It combines all the alerts into one incident and automatically correlates them with AI."
"It reduces the risk of users accidentally clicking on phishing emails."
"I like that Defender is easy to use and the alerts are all in one central location."
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a stable solution."
"There is also one dashboard that shows us the status of many controls at once and the details I can get... It gives a great overview of many areas, such as files, emails, chats, and links. Even with the apps, it gives you a great overview. In one place you can see where you should look into things more deeply..."
"The ability to hunt that IM data set or the identity data set at the same time is valuable. As incident response professionals, we are very used to EDRs and having device process registry telemetry, but a lot of times, we do not have that identity data right there with us, so we have to go search for it in some other silo. Being able to cross-correlate via both datasets at the same time is something that we can only do in Def"
 

Cons

"If Palo Alto reduces the pricing slightly for their products, it would make them more scalable in markets such as India and globally for cybersecurity."
"Every 30 or 40 days, there's a new version and we need to go and make sure our customer's laptops are upgraded."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a very good product, but financially, it is very expensive, so the company should look into that area."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"While using Cortex, I noticed some aspects that could be improved, such as increasing the synchronization speed between XDR and Xnor."
"The solution eats memory of the computer, unlike anything I've ever seen."
"While using Cortex, I noticed some aspects that could be improved, such as increasing the synchronization speed between XDR and Xnor."
"Being able to filter the events to see those that are related to the actual alert would save time spent by the engineer."
"The deployment of the solution right now is terrible. We find it to be very bad. It could be improved enormously."
"The inclusion of web filtering would be good."
"The deployment of the solution right now is terrible. We find it to be very bad."
"The solution should allow the automation of playbooks."
"The solution could improve by having more deployment methods."
"Microsoft 365 Defender does not have a unique package with emerging endpoint security technologies, such as EDR and XDR."
"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."
"The abundance of sub-dashboards and sub-areas within the main dashboard can be confusing, even if it all technically makes sense."
"Intrusion detection and prevention would be great to have with 365 Defender."
"The support team is not competent or responsive."
"There is no comprehensive visibility, making it less user-friendly."
"The customer support aspect can be better because it's the biggest complaint I hear about Microsoft. They can improve the ease of support and licensing processes."
"The support could be more knowledgable to improve their offering."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"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."
"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."
"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is on a yearly-basis."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"Datto Endpoint Detection and Response is not an expensive solution."
"There is an annual license to use this solution. The price of the solution can be expensive depending on the company."
"The licensing fee for Microsoft 365 Defender is fair."
"We have a lot of problems in Latin America regarding the price of Microsoft 365 Defender, because the relationship between dollars and the money of the different countries, it's is a lot. Many customers that have small businesses say that they would like the solution but it is too expensive. However, large companies do not find the cost an issue."
"While the standalone price of Defender XDR might seem high, its value becomes clear when considering the ease of implementation and smooth integration with our existing Microsoft infrastructure, especially when bundled with other Microsoft products."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is expensive."
"There are no issues with pricing, but sometimes, the clarity in licensing is a concern."
"The license cost for a year is approximately forty-four thousand, and this annual saving is a significant factor in our decision to switch."
"The solutions price is fair for what they offer."
"The price of the solution is high compared to others and we have lost some customers because of it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise48
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise40
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Infocyte HUNT?
The price is quite low. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a four, meaning it is quite cheap.
What needs improvement with Infocyte HUNT?
The inclusion of web filtering would be good.
What is your primary use case for Infocyte HUNT?
They use Datto EDR as part of the solutions that we supply.
What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and p...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender XDR is that we are on an E5 license,...
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
From my perspective, Microsoft Defender XDR can be improved with better visibility in certain areas where I can trigg...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Infocyte HUNT
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Check Point Software, PwC, Grant Thornton, AT&T, DHL, U.S. Department of Defense
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Datto Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) vs. Microsoft Defender XDR and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.