IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index Security operations XDR › Enterprise September 2026 Edition

Extended detection and response for enterprise buyers

Asked as “XDR platform”, and as “extended detection and response solution”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Clear leader
46% of first choices, clear leader.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Microsoft Defender XDR46%10%52endorsed leader
02Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR15%18%49accepted challenger
03CrowdStrike Falcon XDR11%10%20accepted challenger
04CrowdStrike Falcon9%23%26accepted challenger
05SentinelOne Singularity4%10%40accepted challenger
06Stellar Cyber4%4%24accepted challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
08Cisco XDR0%35%17criticized challenger
07Trend Vision One0%27%26criticized challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01Microsoft Defender XDR46%
02Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR15%
03CrowdStrike Falcon XDR11%
04CrowdStrike Falcon9%
05SentinelOne Singularity4%
06Stellar Cyber4%
07Trend Vision One0%
08Cisco XDR0%

02What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
18%
9 of 49 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Palo Alto Cortex XDR often quotes a low per-endpoint rate ... but charges significant additional fees for data ingestion and retention ... your bill will spike unpredictably.” GLM 4.7 FlashX, budget prompt
Trend Vision One
27%
7 of 26 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“**Avoid** if you are a multi-vendor environment and choose **Fortinet** or **Trend Micro**.” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Cisco XDR
35%
6 of 17 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Platforms to **Avoid** or **Approach with Extreme Caution** ... Cisco SecureX / Cisco XDR” Kimi K2, negative prompt
CrowdStrike Falcon
23%
6 of 26 labels negative · 5 of 12 models
“Native platforms like CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Cortex, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne, Trend Micro, Sophos, Trellix, and Cisco are best suited when your environment is already heavily invested” Mistral Small, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

63 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 824 links across 186 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

41 answers · 59 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Palo Alto Networks40 answers · 63 citations · 11 models
32 answers · 34 citations · 10 models
31 answers · 37 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Guideflow28 answers · 28 citations · 10 models
26 answers · 36 citations · 9 models
22 answers · 34 citations · 10 models
21 answers · 21 citations · 9 models
vendor site · SentinelOne15 answers · 22 citations · 5 models
vendor site · Microsoft12 answers · 19 citations · 6 models
vendor site · CrowdStrike12 answers · 17 citations · 7 models
12 answers · 12 citations · 6 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best XDR platform for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which extended detection and response solution would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade XDR platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best XDR platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a XDR platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which XDR platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5CrowdStrike Falcon XDR
Three alternativesMicrosoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
no first choiceChangedCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Three alternativesMicrosoft Defender XDR, Stellar Cyber, eSentire
Microsoft Defender XDR
Two alternativesPalo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Stellar Cyber
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniMicrosoft Defender XDR
Two alternativesCisco XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Microsoft Defender XDRHeld
One alternativePalo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Microsoft Defender XDR
Three alternativesCisco XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Microsoft Defender XDR
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
no first choiceagainst: Trend Vision One
Gemini 3.5 FlashMicrosoft Defender XDR
Five alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Elastic Security, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber
CrowdStrike FalconChanged
Three alternativesMicrosoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
no first choice
Five alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft: Defender XDR & Microsoft Sentinel, Palo Alto Networks: Cortex XDR / Cortex XSIAM, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
Microsoft Defender XDR
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Stellar Cyber Open XDR
against: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
no first choiceagainst: Bitdefender GravityZone, Broadcom, Cisco XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon, Elastic Security, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks, Trellix XDR, Trend Vision One
Perplexity SonarCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Four alternativesMicrosoft Defender XDR, Secureworks Taegis, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber
CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDRChanged
Three alternativesMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Four alternativesCisco XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber Open XDR
against: Fidelis Elevate, Trend Vision One
Microsoft Defender XDR, Stellar Cyberagainst: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAMno first choiceagainst: Cisco XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Grok 4.1 FastCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR
Two alternativesPalo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDRChanged
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR
no first choiceMicrosoft Defender XDR
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
against: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Rapid7
no first choice
Six alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM, Rapid7 InsightIDR, SentinelOne Singularity
against: Broadcom, Cisco XDR, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos, Trellix XDR, Trend Vision One
Mistral SmallMicrosoft Defender XDR
Four alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDRChanged
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR
no first choiceMicrosoft Defender XDR
Three alternativesOntinue, ReliaQuest, Stellar Cyber
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne Singularity
no first choiceagainst: Cisco XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos, Trellix XDR, Trend Vision One
DeepSeek V4 FlashMicrosoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
Microsoft Defender XDRChanged
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
Two alternativesStellar Cyber, Trend Vision One
Microsoft
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Stellar Cyber
against: Palo Alto, Rapid7, deepwatch
no first choiceagainst: CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Exabeam, Hunters, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM, Securonix, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber
Llama 4 MaverickPalo Alto Networks Cortex XDRCrowdStrike FalconChanged
Four alternativesMicrosoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
no first choice
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR, Stellar Cyber
no first choiceno first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashCrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR
Three alternativesPalo Alto Networks, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDRHeld
One alternativePalo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
CrowdStrike Falcon
Three alternativesMicrosoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
SentinelOne Singularity
Three alternativesMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint, Trend Vision One, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange
against: CrowdStrike Falcon
no first choicenothing named
Kimi K2CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR
Two alternativesPalo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Stellar Cyber
CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDRChanged
One alternativeMicrosoft Defender XDR
CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Three alternativesCisco XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber
against: Trend Vision One
Microsoft Defender XDR
Two alternativesReliaQuest GreyMatter, SentinelOne Singularity
no first choiceagainst: Cisco XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Sophos Intercept X
GLM 4.7 FlashXCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR
Four alternativesBitdefender GravityZone XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDRChanged
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR
Four alternativesPalo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber, Trend Vision One
Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularityagainst: CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDRno first choiceagainst: Cisco XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, Trellix XDR, Trend Vision One
MiniMax M2.5Microsoft Defender XDR
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Trend Vision One
Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDRChanged
One alternativeTrend Vision One
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Six alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Elastic Security, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X, Stellar Cyber
Ontinue, ReliaQuest, Stellar Cyber
Five alternativesBitdefender, Cisco XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR, Trend Vision One
against: Palo Alto, Rapid7, deepwatch
no first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:15yes138 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:02yes46 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 09:30yes1522 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:56yes176 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 11:50yes3017 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:13yes79 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:27yes1111 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:31yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:52yes524 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:57yes1334 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:58yes1485 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 14:14yes528 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:15no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:31yes26 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:17yes1124 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:10yes206 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 11:34yes3718 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:30yes56 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:45yes2925 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 12:57yes54 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:02yes1078 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:58yes1322 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:17yes2330 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:36yes1034 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:03yes1510 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:35yes410 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:27yes2129 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:26yes2012 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:55yes2918 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 10:36yes58 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:05yes1434 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:52yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:49yes527 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:26yes1365 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:28yes25161 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:34yes1224 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:43yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:15no03 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:50yes1625 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 14:12yes207 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:32yes1716 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:29yes55 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 09:57yes1516 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:33yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:46no036 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:08yes2234 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:21yes17179 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:43yes1360 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:21no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:07no012 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:52no016 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:36yes1711 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:01yes1713 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:12no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:27yes1734 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:48yes58 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:38no035 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:10yes2579 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:42yes14128 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:27no013 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:27yes2313 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:58yes36 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:35yes1642 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:46yes198 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:48yes3621 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:55yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:01yes2529 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:27yes55 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:55yes553 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:32yes3044 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:04yes2552 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 14:06yes528 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Cisco read as Cisco XDR
CrowdStrike read as CrowdStrike Falcon
ESET read as ESET PROTECT
Elastic read as Elastic Security
Microsoft Defender read as Microsoft Defender XDR
Palo Alto Cortex read as Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
SentinelOne read as SentinelOne Singularity
Trellix read as Trellix XDR
Trend Micro read as Trend Vision One
Trend Micro (Trend Vision One / TrendAI) read as Trend Vision One
Trend Micro (Vision One) read as Trend Vision One
XSIAM read as Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM
Unresolved, counted raw
Microsoft: Defender XDR & Microsoft Sentinel
Palo Alto Networks: Cortex XDR / Cortex XSIAM
Secureworks Taegis
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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