Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Sangfor Endpoint Secure comparison

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Sangfor Endpoint Secure

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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...

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 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.9%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor Endpoint Secure is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint	6.9%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks	3.4%
Sangfor Endpoint Secure	0.8%
Other	88.9%

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH

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.

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Robert Arbuckle

Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time

Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.

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Ovais Abbas

Coordinator Associate at National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases

Quick threat response and behavior analysis while enhancing network security

The main use case is usually related to security. It deals with attacks that come day-to-day such as zero-day attacks and APT attacks. Our main task is to secure the network infrastructure in the hospital where I work It facilitates the departments of IT and other departments to procure and…

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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 features are incident creation, policy-based protection, IP whitelisting, and device encryption. These are beneficial for endpoint and server security."

"Cortex XDR features advanced threat detection capabilities."

"This software helps us understand any issues that may arise when someone is not at work."

"It is easy to use."

"The initial setup is easy."

"The main benefit of using Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks while employing Palo Alto Firewall at the internet edge is that it improves security on our endpoint devices, integrating seamlessly with Palo Alto Firewalls to deliver comprehensive network, analyst, and security details all in a single dashboard, which allows us to manage everything from our network devices."

"What I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is that it is a comprehensive solution that contains everything the organization may need when using endpoints."

"The tool's use cases are relevant to security."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pros

"The most valuable aspect lies in its automation capabilities, particularly within security automation."

"Stable endpoint manager, antivirus, and antimalware, with fast technical support and a straightforward setup."

"The features I have found most valuable are the ransomware and malware protection. The solution detects malware live and whenever it detects suspicious activity, it quarantines it."

"The most valuable aspect is information, specifically the automatic investigation of packages."

"It is a straightforward setup."

"Defender has very little impact on the end-user and the agent works quite well with a minimal impact on the client and server."

"The solution's main antivirus capabilities are okay. So far, they have kept us safe."

"It is easy to use because it is already pre-installed in Windows 10. We don't have to do anything to configure it. You can also configure the firewall by using a group policy so that it can be easily adopted in an environment."

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint pros

"The tool's most valuable features are control access, endpoint security, and load balancing of ISPs."

"The real-time monitoring feature of Sangfor Endpoint Secure is truly real-time, with no delay compared to other solutions."

"What stands out to me is the dual-end user interface they provide."

"The tool's AI feature is helpful in endpoint security."

"The most valuable feature I have found in the system is its comprehensive end-to-end protection."

"Sangfor Endpoint Secure has some good policy certificates."

"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."

"It has a quick response time, threat intelligence, cybersecurity features, quick report generation, behavior analysis, dynamic detection, and quarantine features."

More Sangfor Endpoint Secure pros

Cons

"I have seen lagging with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. There was one time when we faced a threat actor trying to gain access to our system. When our team utilized the tool, we were all on the same dashboard and we faced a lag issue at that time of around five minutes, which was quite significant."

"The product's pricing could be better."

"The solution lags to the real-time scenarios here and there."

"Cortex XDR could improve its sales support team, including better commission structures and referral programs."

"If he is using a smaller company, he can depend on some other tools because Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a bit expensive."

"The complexity and confusion regarding product variants, such as XDR, Forexiant, and Forexon, must be addressed."

"The price could be a little lower."

"It tends to do 99.9% of things. The only thing I'd like is single sign-on authentication into their cloud platform so that my users can be properly authenticated against it."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks cons

"Defender's cloud integration could be improved."

"I would like to see the next generation of the tool improved to work with other operating systems, like Linux."

"If the solution could be integrated more with Defender for Cloud, to be more unified, that would help. It is good now, but even more integration could be done with Defender for Cloud. We see two different portals. If Defender for Endpoint could be ported to the CSPM, Defender for Cloud, that would make things even easier for us."

"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can have more options and more AI capabilities in the future, because everything keeps changing."

"In the next release, I would like to see better management reporting."

"It is not very scalable from the eyes of an MSP because there is no dashboard that you can use to see all of your devices that have Windows Defender unless you have your own dashboard or an RMM tool to actually look at it. So, you might not get to know that a particular computer of a client is doing something, and it might have got a virus. That person might know that, but unless you set it up to actually send you the information, you won't get to know that. That's one of the things that is hard with Microsoft Defender. It is not made for the MSP world where you have one pane of glass to see all of your clients with Microsoft Defender on it unless your RMM tool already has that built-in and it can see the telemetry from Microsoft Defender."

"Microsoft Defender in the basic form is not very useful for managing the security environment. The free version is not capable of covering the needs of centralized management, EDR, and behavioral analysis. If you don't have the commercial version, you can't have centralized management and set up the policies and other things. Each client is a standalone installation, which is not useful for security in an enterprise model."

"In active mode, it's great that it gives you so much information, but it does record every keystroke so you have a lot of logs... that amount of data logging started to add up in the cost."

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint cons

"I face issues while migrating from Kaspersky to Sangfor Endpoint Secure."

"Sangfor Endpoint Secure should include healing capabilities."

"Currently, the tool lacks reporting functionalities."

"I believe Sangfor Endpoint Secure could improve in terms of its user interface and management capabilities."

"There are a few areas for improvement. We have encountered licensing issues on occasion, and sometimes updates don't apply properly."

"When an issue occurs, the response time for first-level support and the time taken for meetings could be improved."

"Sangfor Endpoint Secure performs poorly."

"It would be much more convenient if the migration tool could be installed directly on the customer's VMs, enabling a smoother migration process to the new infrastructure, with potential restrictions addressed accordingly."

More Sangfor Endpoint Secure cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."

"The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."

"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."

"Traps pays for itself within the first 16 months of a three-year subscription. This is attributed to OPEX savings, as security teams spent less time trying to identify and isolate malware for analysis as a result of a reduction in malware incidents, false positives, and breach avoidance."

"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."

"It has a yearly renewal."

"I don't have any issues with the pricing. We are satisfied with the price."

"It is "expensive" and flexible."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

"This solution is part of an enterprise license we have."

"The solution is included with Microsoft Windows."

"The cost is competitive and reasonable because most of the expense is log analytics, storage, and data consumption and ingestion. These things can be throttled and controlled, so they are highly flexible. Defender has a lot of advantages over competing products."

"We went for Microsoft Defender once we were informed that it would be part of our Office 365 package. So, we combined the licensing for the OS with Office 365. Yeah. We thought it was a good bargain."

"If we are acquiring everything in a single place, the front end becomes cost-effective."

"The solution is an open source version and was free with a paid version of Windows 10."

"We mostly use Microsoft products. We use Office 365, and we use Azure. We're also a Microsoft partner. So, the licensing was much cheaper for us, and at the same time, a lot of the features that we were looking for were included in Defender."

"If you don't purchase the advanced threat protection then there is no additional charge."

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint pricing and cost advice

"Price-wise, Sangfor Endpoint Secure can be considered a competitively priced product in the market as it offers quite low prices compared to other solutions."

"Its "pay as you grow" model offers cost-effectiveness compared to major cloud providers."

"The solution is cheap. It is cheaper than other products by 15-20 percent."

"We were using Hyper-V. So, we switched to Sangfor because of the pricing."

"The product is expensive compared to other vendors."

"Sangfor Endpoint Secure is not a cheap solution."

"Sangfor Endpoint Secure's pricing is cheap. I rate it seven out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	42
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	80
Midsize Enterprise	40
Large Enterprise	92

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	3

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,...

Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?

We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior sol...

How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?

The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never pu...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint?

I'm not too familiar with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint; it wasn't some...

What needs improvement with Sangfor Endpoint Secure?

The interface has too many buttons, making it cluttered. It would be better if it were a simplified version with fewe...

What is your primary use case for Sangfor Endpoint Secure?

Sangfor Endpoint Secure is easy to handle with its user-friendly interface. The four engines it utilizes for endpoint...

What advice do you have for others considering Sangfor Endpoint Secure?

At first, people might not understand the interface, which is why it should be simplified. However, once they underst...

SentinelOne Singularity Complete vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Comparisons

Compared 6% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 5% of the time

Cortex XSIAM vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 3% of the time

Trellix Endpoint Security Platform vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 2% of the time

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Competitors

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 4% of the time

HP Wolf Security vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 4% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 4% of the time

F-Secure Total vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 3% of the time

OpenText Core Endpoint Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Competitors

Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response vs Sangfor Endpoint Secure

Compared 14% of the time

ESET Inspect vs Sangfor Endpoint Secure

Compared 8% of the time

Bitdefender GravityZone EDR vs Sangfor Endpoint Secure

Compared 6% of the time

TrendAI Vision One – Endpoint Security vs Sangfor Endpoint Secure

Compared 6% of the time

Trellix Endpoint Security Platform vs Sangfor Endpoint Secure

Compared 4% of the time

More Sangfor Endpoint Secure Competitors

Product Reports

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Download Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks product report

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Download Microsoft Defender for Endpoint product report

Sangfor Endpoint Secure

Download Sangfor Endpoint Secure product report

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus

No data available

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Palo Alto Networks

Microsoft

Demo not available

Sangfor

Overview

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks provides advanced threat detection with AI-driven endpoint protection and seamless integration, ensuring multi-layered security and automatic threat response.

Cortex XDR is designed to safeguard endpoints against malware and suspicious activities. It offers advanced threat detection and response capabilities using behavioral analysis, AI, and machine learning. It seamlessly integrates with security infrastructures, providing endpoint security, firewall integration, and enhanced visibility in both cloud-based and on-premises environments.

What are the key features of Cortex XDR?

Advanced Threat Detection: Uses AI and machine learning for proactive threat identification.
Multi-layered Security: Combines various security measures for comprehensive protection.
Endpoint Protection: Safeguards against malware and exploits.
Behavioral Analysis: Monitors suspicious activity for early detection.
Automatic Threat Response: Automates responses to neutralize threats.

What benefits should users expect?

Ease of Use: Simplifies security management with intuitive design.
Resource Efficiency: Minimizes impact on system resources.
Integration Capabilities: Works well with existing security setups.
Reduced Analyst Workload: Automates processes to decrease manual intervention.

Organizations in diverse sectors deploy Cortex XDR to protect against malware, leveraging its advanced threat detection capabilities. Its integration with existing security infrastructures appeals to those seeking comprehensive protection in both cloud and on-premises environments, providing enhanced visibility and threat intelligence.

Palo Alto Networks

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for organizations. It offers real-time protection against various types of cyber threats, including malware, viruses, ransomware, and phishing attacks.

With its powerful machine-learning capabilities, it can detect and block sophisticated attacks before they can cause any harm. The solution also includes endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities, allowing organizations to quickly investigate and respond to security incidents. It provides detailed insights into the attack timeline, enabling security teams to understand the scope and impact of an incident.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint also offers proactive threat hunting, allowing organizations to proactively search for and identify potential threats within their network. It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft security solutions, such as Microsoft Defender XDR, to provide a unified and holistic security approach. With its centralized management console, organizations can easily deploy, configure, and monitor the security solution across their entire network.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a robust and scalable security solution that helps organizations protect their endpoints and data from evolving cyber threats.

Microsoft

Organizations use Sangfor Endpoint Secure for endpoint protection and security management, managing devices, servers, and networks against malicious threats. It also assists in blocking websites, managing infrastructure, applications, antivirus needs, and aids in migrating to cloud environments.

Sangfor Endpoint Secure offers end-to-end protection, incorporating file protection, AI detection, behavior analysis, access control, and ISP load balancing. It facilitates VM migration with minimal downtime and includes a dual-end user interface for creating firewall rules, uploading images, and configuring VM settings. Enhancements such as Hyper-V capabilities, policy certificates, honeypot features, and next-generation firewall integrations are available. However, Sangfor Endpoint Secure could improve on console management, reporting functionalities, public cloud migration support, navigation, VPN system issues, licensing, update management, transitioning processes, and incorporating healing capabilities.

What are its most important features?

Comprehensive end-to-end protection including file protection
AI detection and behavior analysis
Access control and ISP load balancing
Ease of VM migration with minimal downtime
Streamlined dual-end user interface for firewall rules and VM settings
Hyper-V capabilities and policy certificates
Honeypot feature for attack detection and RDP protection
Integration with next-generation firewalls

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced device, server, and network security from malicious threats
Simplified migration from on-premises to cloud environments
User-friendly navigation and management capabilities
Advanced detection and behavior analysis reducing potential threats
Streamlined enforcement of robust security policies

Sangfor Endpoint Secure is implemented across various industries to ensure comprehensive security management and protection. IT departments leverage its VM migration capabilities for seamless transitions to cloud environments. Healthcare organizations use it to secure sensitive patient data, while educational institutions utilize it for safeguarding academic records and personal information. Financial services employ it to protect critical transactional data and adhere to stringent compliance requirements.

Sangfor

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health

Information Not Available

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Sangfor Endpoint Secure