9 best XDR tools – integrated defense for modern IT [buyer’s guide]

Cybersecurity continues to be a top priority for organizations, but confidence in existing systems is alarmingly low. Only 4% of organizations are confident that their connected devices and related technologies are protected against cyberattacks.

This gap highlights the need for advanced cybersecurity solutions, such as XDR. Meaning extended detection and response, XDR combines cybersecurity solutions like EDR, NGAV, IAM, and SIEM into a unified platform and provides advanced tools for detecting and responding to threats.

To help you keep your IT environment secure, we’ve reviewed the best XDR software below. Before that, let’s look at what XDR tool is, what its key components are, and why you should invest in one.

What is an XDR tool?

XDR (Extended Detection and Response) is a cybersecurity software solution designed to provide comprehensive threat detection, investigation, and response across multiple layers of an organization’s IT environment. Unlike EDR and SIEM, XDR tool offers visibility across multiple security layers, including networks, endpoints, servers, and cloud workloads.

The integrated nature of XDR software offers a broader view of an organization’s IT environment and a more cohesive defense against threats.

Key components of XDR software

The key components of XDR tools are data collection, threat detection, automated responses, incident management, and continuous learning. Here is a summary of each:

1. Data collection

XDR toos collects data from multiple sources, including endpoints, servers, networks, identity, email systems, and cloud workloads. This allows for complete visibility across the entire IT ecosystem, ensuring that no touch point is overlooked.

2. Threat detection

XDR tool analyzes the collected data using machine learning and AI, identifying unusual patterns and flagging potential security threats. Technologies like data enrichment, real-time analytics, and threat intelligence assist this process.

3. Automated response

Once threats are detected, XDR systems prioritize threat data by severity so that IT staff can quickly analyze and prioritize the most critical events and automate responses to them. Based on the severity, the automated responses can include isolating compromised endpoints, enforcing security policies, terminating suspicious processes, and more.

4. Incident management

XDR providers not only detect threats but also help understand why they occur. XDR systems include a root cause analysis tool, which identifies the source of incidents, monitors their progression, and provides insights to prevent hackers from exploiting your system again.

5. Continuous learning

XDR software uses AI and machine learning to learn and improve continuously. Machine learning algorithms continually update their threat detection capabilities, meaning your protection will only improve over time.

Why do you need an XDR tool?

Below are the main reasons why you should consider investing in an XDR tool:

1. Integrated threat visibility: XDR toosl provides the most comprehensive threat visibility across all cybersecurity solutions. They collect data from endpoints, network traffic, email, servers, cloud workloads, and more.
2. Reduced alert fatigue: XDR tools can remove anomalies determined to be insignificant from the alert stream. The XDR provider’s alert filtering has become increasingly critical as SOC teams receive 4,484 alerts a day, with 67% being ignored because of alert fatigue and false positives.
3. Identify and contain breaches faster: On average, it takes 194 days to identify a data breach and 292 days to contain it fully. XDR tool helps shorten this process by monitoring your system activity in real-time, alerting you to potential issues, and offering tools to remediate them.
4. Boosted productivity: XDR tools can automatically respond to threats by isolating compromised systems, blocking malicious IP addresses, resetting passwords, and more. This frees up the IT staff’s time to focus on more strategic tasks.

The 9 best XDR tool for 2025

When selecting the best XDR (Extended Detection and Response) software for 2025, consider solutions that provide robust threat detection, response automation, and integration across various security domains like endpoints, networks, and cloud environments.

Below, we’ve reviewed the 9 top XDR solutions according to our research, which are:

1. Bitdefender GravityZone
2. Cynet
3. ESET
4. SentinelOne Singularity XDR
5. Microsoft Defender XDR
6. Sophos XDR
7. CrowdStrike Falcon
8. Cortex XDR
9. Cisco XDR

#1 Bitdefender GravityZone

Bitdefender GravityZone offers thread visibility and response across endpoints, identities, networks, clouds, mobile devices, and applications. The tool correlates threat signals from various data points and provides an incident graph, a detailed attack synopsis, and a guided response plan.

To assist with incident management, GravityZone offers an Incident Advisor feature that outlines what, why, and how an incident happened. Users also have access to a root cause analysis tool to investigate the root causes of an incident deeply.

G2 Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars (60+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (200+ reviews)

Bitdefender GravityZone pricing:

• The GravityZone Business Security Premium enterprise pricing plans start from $570 for a year for 10 devices.

#2 Cynet

Cynet is an XDR platform that offers full end-to-end protection of endpoints, servers, networks, users, emails, and the cloud. It monitors your IT environment in real-time to ensure threats are not missed. Cynet helps with automated threat detection and response through features like continuous email monitoring, user behavior analytics, and port scanning.

Like ESET, Cynet integrates with Atera for additional capabilities, such as patch management, RMM, remote access, and IT ticketing. Cynet also offers an MDR service for its XDR product for organizations that need expert help.

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (200+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars (3 reviews)

Cynet pricing:

• Elite: $7 per month per endpoint
• All in One: $9 per month per endpoint 

#3 ESET

ESET is an XDR solution for identifying anomalous behavior and breaches on Windows, macOS, and Linux systems. The key features of ESET are incident visualization for better understanding of incidents, root cause analysis to pinpoint the origin of threats, and live response options for eliminating threats. 

ESET has an alert scoring system to prevent alert fatigue from happening. For extended IT management functionality, ESET integrates with Atera. ESET also offers an MDR solution, which is essentially an XDR as a managed service.

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (800+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (1,000+ reviews)

ESET pricing:

• ESET’s pricing plans are divided into ESET Protect Enterprise, ESET Protect Elite, and ESET Protect MDR Ultimate. To get the pricing, contact ESET’s sales team on their website.

#4 SentinelOne Singularity XDR

SentinelOne Singularity XDR helps you gather and combine data across different sources to understand a threat in depth. To respond to threats, you can use automated workflows, real-time alerts, and AI-driven response actions. Like Atera’s Network Discovery tool, SentinelOne XDR offers a network discovery as an add-on to map out your assets. 

SentinelOne’s RemoteOps add-on gives remote configuration capabilities. Singularity XDR integrates with Singularity Cloud to extend security across servers, containers, VMs, and Kubernetes clusters. This is ideal for organizations needing protection across public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise data centers.

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (150+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 stars (80+ reviews)

SentinelOne pricing:

• Singularity Core: $69.99 per month for 5-100 workstations
• Singularity Control: $79.99 for 5-100 workstations
• Singularity Complete: $159.99 for 5-100 workstations
• Singularity Commercial: $209.99 per month for 5-100 workstations
• Singularity Enterprise: Pricing is based on custom quotation

#5 Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR helps protect endpoints, SaaS apps, identities, IoT devices, and email and collaboration tools. Defender XDR has an incident queue page that lists unresolved incidents and their severity. Once threats have been identified, the tool responds to them automatically by blocking URLs, stopping processes, isolating devices, and more.

Microsoft Defender XDR is an ideal XDR solution for organizations that are already using Microsoft products. Defender XDR integrates with Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Sentinel, and more. In addition, it offers support for MSPs with a multitenant environment feature.

G2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 stars (250+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (10+ reviews)

Microsoft Defender XDR pricing:

• The pricing is based on a custom quotation. 

#6 Sophos XDR

Sophos XDR combines several Sophos products for a unified XDR solution. It detects anomalies across endpoints, cloud environments, mobile devices, firewalls, and networks. Once the threats are detected, the automated actions include process termination, ransomware rollback, and network isolation.

Like Atera, Sophos has AI capabilities that assist in identifying suspicious activity. The AI capabilities provide insights into attacker behavior, help understand detections, and recommend next steps. For more capabilities, Sophos integrates with Microsoft, CrowdStrike, Darktrace, BrightGauge, and more.

G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (440+ reviews)

Capterra rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 stars (200+ reviews)

Sophos Intercept X pricing:

• To get the pricing, you need to request a custom quotation from Sophos’ website.

#7 CrowdStrike Falcon

CrowdStrike Falcon is mainly used for enterprise IT management and comes with advanced detection and response capabilities. It works alongside its EDR software, which can be extended to gather data from identity, cloud, mobile, data flows, and third-party applications.

CrowdStrike has a Charlotte AI chatbot feature where you can ask questions about your assets. Similar to Atera’s AI script generator, Charlotte AI is capable of generating scripts to resolve problems.

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (270+ reviews)

Capterra rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (30+ reviews)

CrowdStrike Falcon pricing:

• Small businesses: The plans range from $59.99 to $99.99 per device, depending on the number of devices you manage.
• Enterprises: The enterprise plans range from $99.99 per device to $184.99 per device. Large organizations can also request a custom quotation.

#8 Cortex XDR

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks identifies malicious threats using patented behavioral analytics. It analyzes behavior through machine learning to identify anomalies that may indicate attacks. Users get a complete picture of threats with Cortex XDR’s incident management tool. With a single click, you can view the root cause of any alert.

To safeguard endpoints, Cortex XDR offers technologies like NGAV, disk encryption, USB device control, and a host firewall.

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (40+ reviews)

Capterra rating: 4.3 out of 5.0 stars (10+ reviews)

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR pricing:

• To get the pricing, you need to request a demo from Palo Alto Networks website.

#9 Cisco XDR

Cisco XDR is an XDR solution with features like threat hunting with automated MITRE ATT&CK mappings, customizable orchestration playbooks, incident prioritization, and automation. Cisco’s AI Assistant in XDR provides data-driven guidance, remediation tactics, and next steps for fixing threats.

Cisco XDR is ideal for organizations using Cisco’s Meraki MX network switches and business routers. Meraki MX products natively integrate with Cisco XDR and provide visibility into network activity. For better cybersecurity, Cisco integrates with third-party security tools.

G2 Rating: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars (1 review)

Capterra Rating: n/a

Cisco XDR Pricing:

• Cisco offers three XDR packages, which all come at custom pricing. To get the pricing, join Cisco’s demo webinar.

Atera – the best IT management platform with integrated XDR

Atera is an all-in-one IT management platform that integrates with the leading XDR solutions, like ESET, Cynet, and Bitdefender. Using Atera and its XDR integrations, you can secure your IT infrastructure with features like real-time threat detection and response, AI and automation, patch management, remote access, and more.

Atera uses transparent and scalable pay-per-technician pricing, where you pay for the number of technicians using the platform instead of the number of endpoints managed. Enterprise customers get dedicated user onboarding, and 24/7 customer support is available for all users.

Features and capabilities

Atera’s IT management capabilities include:

• Real-time monitoring and alerting: Atera’s RMM monitors your system activity in real-time and alerts you when potential issues arise, helping you to keep your systems secure.
• PSA: Atera’s PSA includes a helpdesk and ticketing system, Atera’s customer portal, contract management, an SLA manager, and more.
• Third-party integrations: Atera integrates with the leading XDR tools, including ESET, Cynet, and Bitdefender. In addition, different antivirus software, firewall management, and threat intelligence integrations are available. 
• AI: The Atera AI Copilot assists with real-time device troubleshooting, script and command line generation, remote session summaries, instant ticket responses, and more.
• Reports: Atera’s reporting and analytics enable you to monitor system health and performance through reports like patch status, software inventory, ticket activity, and more.
• Automation: Using Atera’s IT automation profiles, you can automate tasks like deploying patches, performing maintenance tasks, and running scripts.

For a detailed list of Atera’s features and their benefits, read our Atera review.

Customer reviews and ratings

G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (700+ reviews)

What Atera users are saying on G2:

• “I like how there are multiple third-party integrations for the same need, like endpoint protection and backup,” a G2 user mentions.

• “I was skeptical about switching to Atera at first, but soon I asked myself and my colleagues why we hadn’t done so sooner,” a G2 user explains. “In the past 8 years of using Atera, there have been a lot of improvements made.” 

Capterra rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (380+ reviews)

What Atera users are saying on Capterra:

• “We’ve been using Atera for the past six months, and it is being used as an all-in-one RMM solution for centralized IT management, remote support, and proactive monitoring,” a Capterra user explains.

• “Atera is affordable because they charge per technician instead of per endpoint,” a Capterra user mentions. “Atera’s reports are easy to create and they can be sent to customers to show what is happening behind the scenes.”

Atera pricing plans

Atera offers tailored pricing plans for both IT departments and MSPs. The plans are based on pay-per-technician, which allows you to manage unlimited devices at a fixed monthly cost.

Atera pricing plans for IT departments: 

• Professional: $149 per month, per technician
• Expert: $189 per month, per technician
• Master: $219 per month, per technician
• Enterprise: Custom quotation; contact sales to get pricing

Atera pricing plans for MSPs:

• Pro: $129 per month, per technician
• Growth: $179 per month, per technician
• Power: $209 per month, per technician
• Superpower (Enterprise): Custom quotation; contact sales to get pricing

Securing your IT environment from threats

Hopefully, our article on the top XDR solutions has been useful! At the end of the day, the best solution for securing your IT environment depends on your organization’s specific needs.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one IT management solution with integrated XDR, Atera is arguably the best choice. Atera’s features include AI-powered device troubleshooting, patch management, remote access, alerting, and reporting, as well as integrations with leading XDR solutions, like ESET, Cynet, and Bitdefender.

To get started securing your IT environment, you can sign up for Atera’s 30-day free trial today!