IT AI Index
Index Security operations XDR › Small business September 2026 Edition

Extended detection and response for small business buyers

Asked as “XDR platform”, and as “extended detection and response solution”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 44 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Clear leader
57% 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 a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Coro57%0%54endorsed leader
02Microsoft Defender for Cloud14%0%11accepted challenger
03Microsoft Defender XDR11%18%45accepted challenger
04Huntress Managed EDR5%0%13accepted challenger
05SentinelOne Singularity2%22%37accepted challenger
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
10Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR0%71%28criticized challenger
09CrowdStrike Falcon0%55%31criticized challenger
08Trend Vision One0%46%13criticized challenger
06Sophos Intercept X0%6%18accepted challenger
07Bitdefender0%0%10accepted 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.

One product takes 57% of first choices here, so the chart would put nine markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. Three products carry a negative rate above 25% in this category. Jump to the standing

02What they warned about

Seven of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Perplexity Sonar, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3.7 Flash and Kimi K2 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
71%
20 of 28 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“notoriously steep learning curve and a highly complex user interface... should be avoided or approached with extreme caution” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
CrowdStrike Falcon
55%
17 of 31 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Here are the XDR platforms small businesses should avoid or be cautious about... This is prohibitively expensive for a small business” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Microsoft Defender XDR
18%
8 of 45 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“If your business has fewer than 300 users, avoid buying into the full enterprise-grade Microsoft Defender XDR” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
SentinelOne Singularity
22%
8 of 37 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“**Avoid:** ... or SentinelOne Complete unless you have specific high-security requirements” Kimi K2, paraphrase 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

65 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. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 857 links across 178 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

54 answers · 97 citations · 10 models
41 answers · 68 citations · 9 models
38 answers · 42 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Palo Alto Networks27 answers · 28 citations · 11 models
18 answers · 36 citations · 8 models
vendor site · SentinelOne16 answers · 19 citations · 6 models
15 answers · 15 citations · 10 models
15 answers · 15 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Huntress14 answers · 16 citations · 7 models
vendor site · Amazon14 answers · 15 citations · 7 models
vendor site · Guideflow14 answers · 14 citations · 7 models
vendor site · Hexnode13 answers · 14 citations · 9 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 a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which extended detection and response solution would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top XDR platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best XDR platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a XDR platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which XDR platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5SentinelOne Singularity
Two alternativesCoro, Microsoft Defender XDR
Sophos CentralChanged
Three alternativesCytellix, ESET PROTECT, Microsoft Defender XDR
SentinelOne Singularity
Four alternativesBlumira, Coro, CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR
Cynet
Four alternativesBlumira, Elastic Security, Microsoft Defender XDR, Sophos Intercept X
no first choiceagainst: Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
GPT-5.4 miniMicrosoft Defender XDR
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
against: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Microsoft Defender XDRHeld
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Sophos MDR/XDR
Microsoft Defender XDR
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
against: Trend Vision One
Microsoft Defender XDR / Defender Suite for Business Premium
One alternativeSophos
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity
no first choiceagainst: CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Gemini 3.5 FlashMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesCoro, Guardz, Sophos Intercept X
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Microsoft Defender for CloudHeld
Three alternativesCoro, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos MDR / Intercept X with XDR
Coro
Four alternativesCynet, Microsoft Defender for Business / Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Four alternativesCoro, Huntress Managed EDR, Sophos Intercept X, Wazuh
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Huntress Managed EDR
Three alternativesCoro, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Sophos Intercept X
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Perplexity SonarCoro
Two alternativesCynet, Microsoft Defender XDR
Huntress Managed EDRChanged
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint/Business
Coro
Four alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Cynet, Microsoft Defender XDR, Sophos Intercept X
Coro, Microsoft Defender for Business / Defender XDR
One alternativeHuntress Managed EDR
no first choiceagainst: Cisco/XDR-style enterprise platforms, CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
Grok 4.1 FastCoro
Four alternativesBitdefender GravityZone XDR, Huntress Managed EDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
CoroHeld
Three alternativesBitdefender Managed XDR, Cynet, Microsoft Defender XDR
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Coro
Five alternativesBitdefender GravityZone XDR, Cynet, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto
Coro
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone XDR, Huntress Managed EDR, Microsoft Defender XDR
against: Palo Alto
no first choice
Six alternativesCoro, CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
against: Cisco XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
Mistral SmallCoroCoroHeldagainst: Microsoft Defender XDR, Trend Vision OneCoro
Four alternativesMicrosoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber
against: CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR
Corono first choice
Five alternativesCisco XDR, CrowdStrike/XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
nothing named
DeepSeek V4 FlashMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesCoro, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
against: CrowdStrike Falcon
CoroChanged
Two alternativesMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint, SentinelOne Singularity
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Coro, Microsoft Defender XDR
Four alternativesBitdefender, CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Stellar Cyber
against: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Cynet
Three alternativesCoro, Huntress Managed EDR, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
against: CrowdStrike Falcon
Coro
One alternativeMicrosoft Defender XDR
against: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
against: Bitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Sentinel, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Trend Vision One
Llama 4 MaverickCoroCoroHeld
Three alternativesBitdefender, CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR
Coro
One alternativeSophos Intercept X
CoroCoro
One alternativeMicrosoft Defender XDR
nothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashCoroagainst: CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne SingularityMicrosoft Defender for CloudChanged
Three alternativesCoro, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
Microsoft Defender XDR
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Huntress Managed EDR, SentinelOne Singularity
against: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
Coro
One alternativeBitdefender
no first choice
Three alternativesHuntress Managed EDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
against: Cisco XDR, Elastic SIEM/XDR, FireEye, IBM QRadar, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, ReliaQuest, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X, Stellar Cyber, Trellix XDR, Trend Vision One
Kimi K2Microsoft Defender XDR
Five alternativesCoro, CrowdStrike Falcon, Huntress Managed EDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos MDR
CoroChanged
Three alternativesHuntress Managed EDR, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Sophos Intercept X
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity
Coro, Sophos Intercept X
Three alternativesCynet, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity
Coro, Microsoft Defender XDR
Three alternativesBitdefender, CrowdStrike Falcon, Huntress Managed EDR
Microsoft Defender XDR
Five alternativesBitdefender, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos, Stellar Cyber
against: CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
GLM 4.7 FlashXCoro
Four alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Trend Vision One
CoroHeld
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity
against: ESET PROTECT
Coro
Eight alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X, Stellar Cyber, Trend Vision One
Coro
Three alternativesBlumira, Microsoft Defender XDR, Sophos Intercept X
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto
no first choice
Two alternativesCoro, Microsoft Defender XDR
against: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, WithSecure Elements XDR
MiniMax M2.5CoroCoroHeld
Four alternativesBitdefender, CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne Singularity
Coro
Four alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One
Coro, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
One alternativeBitdefender
Coro
One alternativeMicrosoft Defender XDR
against: CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
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 13:22yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:58no06 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:42yes1424 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:40yes194 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:29yes3117 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:50yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:02yes1520 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:45yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:46yes523 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:57yes1227 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:30yes1752 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 11:17yes521 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:14yes97 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:05no03 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:33yes922 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:40yes204 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 09:23yes3115 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 14:15yes55 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:03yes2756 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:45yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:23yes1033 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:49yes1323 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:25yes29153 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:35yes1452 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:08yes910 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:08yes68 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:28yes2025 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:13yes207 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:39yes4622 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:24yes813 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:45yes1320 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:27yes54 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:43no040 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:15yes1937 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:36yes12109 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:18yes1276 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:35yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:48yes44 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:28yes2624 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:11yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 13:50yes3817 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:49yes53 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 10:36yes1620 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:31yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 14:09yes524 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:33yes721 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:54yes2148 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:11yes1626 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:51no08 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:15no010 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:40yes1125 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:14yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:16yes1611 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:57no06 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:19yes1822 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:34yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:29no039 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:33yes1560 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:55yes11106 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:01yes514 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:02yes1811 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:14yes36 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:23yes1921 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 14:03yes208 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 11:41yes158 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:35yes54 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:04yes2629 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:43yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:24yes21100 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:35yes2136 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:55yes3299 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:27yes1939 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
CrowdStrike read as CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon Go read as CrowdStrike Falcon
Cynet 360 read as Cynet
ESET (ESET PROTECT) read as ESET PROTECT
Elastic read as Elastic Security
Huntress read as Huntress Managed EDR
Microsoft Defender read as Microsoft Defender XDR
Microsoft Defender (Enterprise E5) read as Microsoft Defender XDR
Palo Alto Cortex read as Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR
SentinelOne read as SentinelOne Singularity
SentinelOne (Singularity Complete) read as SentinelOne Singularity
SentinelOne (Singularity) read as SentinelOne Singularity
Trellix read as Trellix XDR
Trend Micro read as Trend Vision One
Unresolved, counted raw
Bitdefender Managed XDR
Cisco/XDR-style enterprise platforms
Cytellix
Defendify MDR
Elastic SIEM/XDR
Fortinet FortiEDR / FortiXDR
Microsoft Defender XDR / Defender Suite for Business Premium
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint/Business
Sophos MDR / Intercept X with XDR
Sophos MDR/XDR
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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