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Microsoft Defender XDR vs Secureworks Taegis XDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 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 Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (8th), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
Secureworks Taegis XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
21st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.9%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 4.9%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Secureworks Taegis XDR is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender XDR4.9%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.9%
Secureworks Taegis XDR1.5%
Other88.7%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

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.
KO
House security operator at Cypress Creek Renewables
Advanced threat hunting saves significant time in tracking and responding to incidents
Microsoft Defender XDR could be improved with a lower price. My main suggestion would essentially be what Copilot is providing, which is a single pane of glass, so I don't have to go to different windows. That's just a workflow consideration for me. It would be great to have all the information centralized into one particular data app. If I need to open up extra ones, I can, however, I would appreciate a future where everything I need is right there on one single pane of glass. Beyond that, there's really nothing else I see that I would want Microsoft to improve.
Mohammad Talha Talkin Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager IT at PDS Multinational
Improved network protection has secured our servers and monitors web and application traffic
Till now, I have not seen any weak point that needs to be improved in Secureworks Taegis XDR. I think that since the technology is becoming upgraded, it will be good for Sophos to include more features in future updates of this solution. Secureworks Taegis XDR is a good product, but it should include AI technology.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When the pandemic started, Palo Alto came up with many solutions, which helped with the quick shift from on-premises to the cloud."
"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"It's a nice product that's stable and scalable."
"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."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"The tool's use cases are relevant to security."
"It can automatically correlate events and logs, which is very helpful for an IT administrator. It can correlate different kinds of malware activities over a network, agent, or host system. You do not need to do it manually. It is a good feature. It is also a user-friendly solution. We have deployed it on the cloud because our space does not provide any flexibility for on-premises deployment, but Palo Alto has added some flexibility to install it on-premises. It must be like the same Cortex XDR agent for all the VPN services, web filtering services, and everything else."
"The ability to kind of stitch everything together and see the actual complete picture is very useful. I guess you'd call it a playbook. Some people call it the forensics analysis of what was happening on particular endpoints when they detected some malicious behavior, and what transpired before that to cause that. It is also very user friendly. The way they have done everything and integrated all the solutions that they've purchased over the years to make it a very seamless, effective product is very good. One thing about Palo Alto is that they take the products or services that they purchase and make them seamless for the end user as compared to some companies that purchase other companies and then just kind of have their products off to the side or keep different interfaces. Palo Alto doesn't do that."
"Many people don't realize that Microsoft Azure, Exchange Online, and the security and compliance portal all sync together. For instance, within the Azure portal you can set security restrictions and policies to help secure your tenants... The good part of it is that these products have already been integrated. When you sign on as an admin you have global admin rights and that gives you access to all these features."
"The incident threat response and its ability to facilitate effective remediation against threats are the standout features."
"Defender XDR can stop advanced attacks, like ransomware or business email compromise."
"For me, the advanced hunting capabilities have been really great. It allowed querying the dataset with their own language, which is KQL or Kusto Query Language. That has allowed me to get much more insight into the events that have occurred. The whole power of 365 Defender is that you can get the whole story. It allows you to query an email-based activity and then correlate it with an endpoint-based activity."
"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 summarization of emails is a valuable feature."
"My clients like Defender's file integrity monitoring. They're monitoring Windows and Linux system files."
"The advantage of Microsoft Defender XDR has over other XDRs in the market is that it's easy to use. You can quickly differentiate between alerts, incidents, devices, software, etc. It's easier to investigate an incident, and you have so many options. You can automate investigations and use playbooks. There's also the live response session, which is something you can't find in any other XDR."
"Definitely, Secureworks Taegis XDR is cost effective for the long run since the product is at a lower cost rather than other brands."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It's a complete solution package."
 

Cons

"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."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by proving hard disk encryption. If it could support this it would be a complete solution."
"The setup is quite easy. We had appropriate support from the manager. One thing that was missing was the integration part."
"In reporting they should have a customizable dashboard due to the fact that C-level people don't like reporting to the IT department. They prefer to have a real-time dashboard. That kind of dashboard needs to have various customizations."
"Cortex does not offer an on-premises solution. However, some customers would prefer not to be on the cloud. It would be ideal if it could offer something on-prem as well."
"It'll help if customization was easier."
"It's very time-consuming to log support issues and the people that answer the tickets aren't very knowledgeable."
"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"What could be improved in Microsoft 365 Defender is its licensing, e.g. it should be more consolidated and would be good if it has some optimizations. Improving the alerts and notifications, in terms of adding more details, would also be good for this solution."
"Microsoft 365 Defender does not have a unique package with emerging endpoint security technologies, such as EDR and XDR."
"The message trace feature for investigating mail flow issues should add more detailed information to the summary report... if they could extend the summary report a little bit, make it more descriptive, ordinary administrators could understand what happened and that the emails failed at this or that point. That way they would know the location to go to try to correct it and to prevent it from occurring again."
"The support could be more knowledgable to improve their offering."
"The capability to not only thwart attacks but also to adapt to evolving threats is crucial."
"There should be better information for experts on features in the solution. What I see when reading about features in Microsoft 365 Defender is that it is always general information. If Microsoft could go deeper into details for the experts about how to use the tools, usage of it would be more familiar and it would be easier to use."
"The only issue I've had is, when it comes to deployment, the steps I must take around policy setup. That is challenging."
"I do think that maybe having a feature within my organization where there are three different domains within which we have to operate would be helpful, as there is currently no unified view within the domains."
"The pricing could be improved."
"We found limitations in the XDR's detections, lacking the ability to create customized detection and log parsing rules."
"Secureworks Taegis XDR is a good product, but it should include AI technology."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a yearly renewal."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"It's the most expensive solution, but features-wise, it's quite strong. It's very good for protection, so the results are very good in the case of protection. I would rate it a two out of ten in terms of pricing."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is already included in our Office 365 licensing. It is better because we're saving money by using it."
"365 Defender is billed per account. I don't know the exact price, but my supervisor told me that Microsoft Defender is cheaper than the alternatives. It's bundled, so you get all the features in one place."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is priced high."
"Microsoft Defender XDR is included in our license."
"The solution is affordable, and we haven't been hit with any hidden costs. The subscription model is straightforward, and it's easy to understand how much additional features cost. If we need to cancel a license or feature, we do that well in advance to avoid being charged for it, but overall, the pricing and licensing are simple and easy."
"The solution is too expensive."
"I believe that the pricing of the licensing is fair."
"I would like to have more security features in the lower licenses because not every customer is able to buy E5 licenses. The bundling isn't always easy for our customers to understand. Compared to other tools, it's a good price."
"The pricing is six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise38
No data available
 

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 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 pricing, setup, costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender XDR is tied to our E5 subscription, whi...
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
I am not aware of a mobile app that would be available for my team. With a single analyst, if she is ever away, it wo...
What is your primary use case for Secureworks Taegis XDR?
More from the perspective of SOC to ensure that every endpoint is taken care of from a cybersecurity perspective. It'...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
Secureworks Taegis NDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender XDR vs. Secureworks Taegis XDR and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
883,546 professionals have used our research since 2012.