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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Sangfor Endpoint Secure 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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
Sangfor Endpoint Secure
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
32nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 5.6%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor Endpoint Secure is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint5.6%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.7%
Sangfor Endpoint Secure0.7%
Other90.0%
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.
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
OA
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the things that I enjoy the most is using policy extensions. It's like having host firewalls to control USB connections. I think it's a wonderful tool to restrict use when connecting to our computers. Another important tool is Home Insights. That is an add-on to the Cortex solution. I like that because we can see all the vulnerabilities in the environment and control what assets are connected to our network."
"From a single pane of glass, you can easily manage all of your endpoints."
"It'll not slow down your system when compared to others."
"The positive impacts I see from Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks include a complete 360-degree view of our security posture altogether, being a uniform platform where we are ingesting logs from multiple resources."
"The tool is designed to scale for large enterprises and handle large volumes of data."
"Traps is quite a stable product. Once it was properly deployed and configured, you have nothing to be worried about."
"Its ability to react to cyber data attacks is awesome. That is pretty much the use of it. What blows your mind is the ability to access your assets remotely and see what is actually going on with them. You can not only see them in a console. You can also react very rapidly to your assets that are compromised."
"There are a lot of lead solutions in this space, however, Palo Alto is number one."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a comprehensive and scalable solution for protecting on-premises and hybrid infrastructure."
"It provides peace of mind with really good pricing."
"It works well with different solutions from Microsoft."
"The virus scanning capability is excellent, and it feeds all the logs into the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, making them easy to search for."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has changed significantly for the better."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to effectively detect threats. It has the EDR feature, endpoint detection and response, and that is very good."
"It's an enterprise solution that provides a centralized console and it supports all the platforms that we use, including Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android."
"File protection is the most valuable feature. Antivirus security on the Level OS, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Guard for 2019."
"The real-time monitoring feature of Sangfor Endpoint Secure is truly real-time, with no delay compared to other solutions."
"Sangfor Endpoint Secure has some good policy certificates."
"The most valuable feature I have found in the system is its comprehensive end-to-end protection."
"The user-friendliness of Sangfor Endpoint Secure is particularly impressive. Even with basic technical knowledge, users can easily navigate the system, make changes, and implement updates."
"The tool's AI feature is helpful in endpoint security."
"What stands out to me is the dual-end user interface they provide."
"We use the product for network protection from any malicious threat."
"The tool's most valuable features are control access, endpoint security, and load balancing of ISPs."
 

Cons

"The product's pricing could be better."
"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"Cortex XDR should have a lightweight agent, and the agent size should not be heavy."
"It would be good if they could make an exception for applications. Sometimes, it can be a bit of a challenge to make exceptions for certain applications that have been used as rogue."
"There's room for improvement with Mac device installations, which can be challenging."
"They are charging for Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) services, so 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 server sometimes stops continuously to check things so it would be helpful to receive access updates or technical reasons."
"To jump from the partner to Palo Alto directly was challenging."
"It takes some time to understand how this solution works. A few things are unclear at the beginning, such as whether it actually restricts the virus or spam at the initial stage, or when there is a security update, how will we come to know and how will it get synchronized."
"I think the solution needs to be more on par with other antivirus products in the market."
"There's scanning going on that occasionally topples the memory, causing everything to freeze. This should be fixed."
"Microsoft should improve support for third-party platforms, because not all functionality is available for all of them. It's a good product, but they should just extend the functionality for all platforms."
"I personally haven't experienced any pain points, but some of my coworkers feel that it isn't secure enough."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender a seven out of 10 because of its lack of usability for an MSP and its lack of telemetry information, but it is useful, and it does stop ransomware."
"The second major area for improvement involves enhanced capabilities for different operating systems or platforms. That is, even though we have coverage for different operating systems or platforms such as Linux, we don't get all of the controls and enhanced capabilities that are available with Windows devices."
"Defender's cloud integration could be improved."
"There are a few areas for improvement. We have encountered licensing issues on occasion, and sometimes updates don't apply properly."
"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."
"I believe Sangfor Endpoint Secure could improve in terms of its user interface and management capabilities."
"Sangfor Endpoint Secure should include healing capabilities."
"It is complicated to establish a tunnel due to technical issues in the VPN system."
"When an issue occurs, the response time for first-level support and the time taken for meetings could be improved."
"Currently, the tool lacks reporting functionalities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"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."
"The price was fine."
"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. I have customers that have voiced that the solution is good for the value but if I want to sell more of the solution the price reduction would help."
"The price of the product is not very economical."
"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."
"Licenses depend upon what you are looking for and what kind of security do you want to implement. There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. When we used to buy Symantec, we used to spend on 100 licenses. We used to spend approximately $2,700 for those many licenses, and they came in packs. To add one more license, I had to buy a pack with a minimum of 10 licenses. I had to spend on nine extra licenses because I can't get a single license, whereas when we go for Microsoft, we can get as many licenses as we want. If I have 100 users today, and tomorrow, I have 90 users, I can release my 10 licenses next month. With any other software vendor, you buy licenses for one year, and you have to stick with that. If today you have 100 licenses, and tomorrow, you have 50, you have already paid for one year's license. You can't go back and tell them that I don't require these 50 licenses because I have lost my 50 users, but with Microsoft Defender, licensing is on a monthly basis. It gives you both options. You can go yearly and save on it, or you can go monthly. You will, again, save on it. It is very fair everywhere."
"The license for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included in the license for the Microsoft Windows operating system."
"We pay a yearly license for Microsoft Defender. We also have a support contract with them."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is included with a Microsoft E5 license."
"Microsoft has different plans for buying this product. The price depends on the configuration of the full set of products that you buy and on the licensing program in your contract."
"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."
"The price was a problem for me three years ago, but they improved their E3, E5, and a la carte licensing. In other words, you have to get all of E5. That used to be a problem because you had E3, Defender, and guardrails, but you needed an E5 license to get the management suite and the analytics. It's more flexible now. You can switch from a la carte to the entire suite when it starts to make sense. It's becoming more economically competitive to go that route."
"The pricing is competitive."
"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."
"Sangfor Endpoint Secure's pricing is cheap. I rate it seven out of ten."
"Sangfor Endpoint Secure is not a cheap solution."
"We were using Hyper-V. So, we switched to Sangfor because of the pricing."
"The solution is cheap. It is cheaper than other products by 15-20 percent."
"Its "pay as you grow" model offers cost-effectiveness compared to major cloud providers."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Media Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise96
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

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?
We have been discussing pricing, setup cost, and licensing, and we are currently on an E3. We are discussing going to...
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...
 

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
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Sangfor Endpoint Secure and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.