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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs VIPRE Endpoint Security comparison

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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 Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (6th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Agentic Endpoint Security (3rd)
VIPRE Endpoint Security
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
51st
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.8%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 6.4%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VIPRE Endpoint Security is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.4%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.8%
VIPRE Endpoint Security0.8%
Other89.0%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

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.
SS
IT Security Analyst at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
Easy to upgrade and manage but needs better reporting
There just was a lot about it that I didn't like. For blocking certain items, such as USBs, we felt like it was slowing down the network too much. Therefore we utilized a GPO for blocking things like that instead. Our environment was big and I didn't feel like the console did a good enough job. We outgrew the product. I've been asking for a change for a couple of years now, and it finally got approved. In terms of the console, I had over 2000 endpoints in there and there wasn't even a search feature for me to look through them. If I had to find where a policy was I had to sort in alphabetical order to find an endpoint that I wanted. They need to offer a search function within the console - maybe something that shows a "last connected" notice. That way, it's easier to manage obsolete machines that you don't need anymore. They had a very vague setting, like after so many days, when do you want us to remove these, you'd see them. I just wish the console was a little more responsive when I would do commands. The reports could have been better. The product would show a lot of endpoints as not communicating. That was another pain point. We constantly had to run an SQL query to clean up the database as I would know immediately when I was in the console, that it just wasn't being responsive. I could tell I was being given bad data and that we had to clean up the database. As soon as I would clean up that database, it was like a purging of the SQL database and it would become a lot more responsive. The problem was that our environment was too big. We're going through a growth spurt right now. In the end, the solution is small and much better suited for a small business. We would get a lot of false positives and instead of them fixing the false positive, they would just want us to put in an exception, which I didn't care for. The product is based on an older model of signature files. It doesn't use any artificial intelligence or anything. It was slow to refresh the policies and computer scans. The larger we got, the more it became an issue. If a company stayed small, I'm not sure if they would have noticed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Since using Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, our MTTR has reduced, which means the mean time to resolve any ticket has been reduced."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks should be a stable solution."
"We have a complete overview of all our PCs and it's very easy to handle and to use the interface. It has a lot of benefits for us."
"If the user leaves our premises or network, Palo Alto Traps will still be on that endpoint and will still apply our policies."
"Once you become familiar with it, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a more powerful tool and I would say that I prefer it over MDE because it is a stronger tool for me."
"The behavior-based detection feature is valuable."
"The scalability of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very good."
"Stability-wise, it is good; I did not hear about any issues in terms of stability, and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be trusted completely."
"It comes included with the Windows license."
"Defender is a part of Windows; you just need to enable it. There is no need to install anything."
"This is not an inventory solution, but it helps you take count of how many workstations you have, as well as what software is installed on each of them."
"For the most of it, it seems like Defender is well truly up there with the other best players in the market."
"This software is easy to use."
"The comprehensiveness of Microsoft threat-protection products is great... Today, Microsoft Sentinel by itself is a leading Gartner SIEM tool. It has advantages over competitors because of the ability to integrate with Microsoft solutions and automate continuous monitoring of Microsoft AD and Office 365 data."
"I would recommend this solution to others if they don't have many third-party tools."
"The primary advantage is that you don't need to install it, because it's included in the Windows 10 delivery and is integrated as part of the Microsoft 365 suite."
"It has low overhead as far as machine resources are concerned. Everything runs faster with VIPRE installed versus some of the competitors. It has also been pretty easy to use. It just runs and gives us reports. It also sends us alerts when there is something that we need to look at. It does its job, and you just look at the reports. In other ways, you just forget that it is there."
"It has improved the way our organization functions, made things run faster in our company, and has done a fantastic job of keeping our networks free of virus."
"In general, it was pretty easy to manage."
"Technical support was always very helpful and responsive."
 

Cons

"There are some third-party solutions that are difficult to integrate with, which is something that can be improved."
"The solution can never really be an on-premises solution based simply on the way it is set up. It needs metadata to run and improve. Having an on-premises solution would cut it off from making improvements."
"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around."
"Limited remote connection."
"This product has not improved my organization - in fact, we are in the process of moving back to another product as a result of Cortex's horrible impact on system performance."
"The onboarding process could be better."
"I feel that it should not be a licensed activity because a feature should allow us to see applications running on end devices."
"If they had pulse rate detection, it would be better."
"Some executive reporting is inefficient, and we're looking into ways to improve it."
"Some of the integrations that Defender should include involve the use of the web app."
"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."
"It can be more secure."
"The detection of viruses could be a little bit better."
"It would be helpful if they included XDR features, on top of the EDR functionality."
"I don't think it's scalable at this moment. It is doing what it's supposed to do, but Microsoft Defender for Endpoint isn't there yet."
"Sometimes it is a little lacking, but for the most part, they are able to provide exactly what I need."
"We would get a lot of false positives and instead of them fixing the false positive, they would just want us to put in an exception, which I didn't care for."
"Their management interface is a little buggy. It requires a few system resources on the management interface. Its reporting can also be better. Overall, the reports are pretty good. They patch some third-party software, but if they can expand what they do for reporting and patch enterprise software, it would be handy."
"Their management interface is a little buggy as it will hang up and crash from time to time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"The cost of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is $55 to $90 USD per endpoint per month."
"The price of the product is not very economical."
"Very costly product."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"I don't recall what the cost was, but it wasn't really that expensive."
"I recently switched from education to private business, and all I can say is that private business licensing from Microsoft is not cheap until you hit certain quantities or scale. That does not mean that it is not comparable to other industries. It is similar pricing, but it is still crazy to me how much you pay for a client. I feel it is high, but it is in line with other vendors."
"It is built into Windows 10. If our clients are using Microsoft Defender, the cost goes away for them."
"Pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is competitive. Out of the bundle, you will get a lot of security, if I talk about Microsoft E5, for example, and get a lot of benefits. If the customer goes and purchases a different solution, it will cost more, so pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is quite reasonable at the moment. There isn't any challenge in terms of pricing, for example, I didn't see a customer who pulled back because of the price. Some prices could be negotiable, and sometimes, as a sales point, the two become negotiable, but they don't bill one and pull back because of the pricing. If you have an E5 license, you get everything."
"Compared to ESET, the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is on the higher side."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comes with Windows 10, and it's free. But for you to be able to manage it in the cloud and use the console, you need to have either an Office 365 E5 subscription or a Microsoft M365 subscription. You need to buy an extra license."
"I pay for it through the Windows Professional or Standard license. It is a one-time cost for me, and I use the same license."
"The nice thing about Defender and Sentinel is that the cost is based on the data logs that you ingest from the Defender endpoints and data connectors. I don't have to buy a 25- or 50- or 1,000-user or enterprise license. I can buy one license at a time."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an expensive solution."
"Its price point has been phenomenal. Our previous solution from Trend Micro was triple the cost of it."
"Its price point has been phenomenal. Our previous solution from Trend Micro was triple the cost of it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
21%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Wholesaler/Distributor
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise97
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
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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
VIPRE Cloud, VIPRE Endpoint Security Cloud Edition, VIPRE Endpoint Security Server Edition
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
College Station ISD, Mid-West Companies, Guardian Network Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. VIPRE Endpoint Security and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.