The 12 Best Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) Solutions, Compared and Priced

Best value overall: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 included in Microsoft 365 E5 and genuinely competitive, which makes its marginal cost zero for a large share of the market.

Best for lean teams: Cynet, which bundles the whole stack plus a 24/7 SOC into one price.

Best detection: CrowdStrike, leading among top EDR companies.

Best autonomous response: SentinelOne.

Best mid-market pricing: Bitdefender.

The hidden cost in this category isn’t the per-endpoint price. It’s telemetry retention and it’s where quotes diverge by multiples.

Full Comparison Table

Vendor	Pricing model	Published pricing?	Retention (base tier)	Managed option	Linux/macOS	Best for
SentinelOne	Per endpoint, tiered	Partial (SMB)	Short, extendable	Vigilance	Full / Full	Autonomous response
Palo Alto Cortex XDR	Per endpoint + ingest	No	Tiered by ingest	Unit 42	Full / Full	Native data fusion
CrowdStrike	Per endpoint, modular	Partial (SMB)	Short, extendable	Falcon Complete	Full / Full	Best detection
Cybereason	Per endpoint	No	Tiered	Yes	Full / Full	Attack-chain clarity
Trend Micro	Per endpoint / credits	Partial	Tiered	Service One	Full / Full	Server workloads
Uptycs	Per endpoint / asset	No	Extended	Partner	Full / Full	Linux and cloud-native
Microsoft Defender	Per user (M365 tiers)	Yes	30 days (advanced hunting)	Defender Experts	Good / Good	Best value in E5
Cynet	Per endpoint, all-in	Partial	Included	Included 24/7	Full / Full	Lean teams
Sophos	Per user / endpoint	Partial (SMB)	Tiered	Sophos MDR	Full / Full	Non-specialist IT
WithSecure	Per endpoint, modular	Partial	Tiered	Yes	Full / Full	European buyers
Trellix	Per endpoint	No	Tiered	Yes	Full / Full	Trellix estates
Bitdefender	Per endpoint	Yes	Tiered	Bitdefender MDR	Full / Full	Mid-market value

The 2026 EDR Scorecard

Rank	Platform	Detection (30%)	Response (20%)	Analyst burden (20%)	Pricing transparency (15%)	Coverage (15%)	Total
1	CrowdStrike	10	9	8	5	9	8.6
2	SentinelOne	9	10	9	5	9	8.6
3	Microsoft Defender	9	8	8	9	8	8.5
4	Palo Alto Cortex XDR	9	9	9	4	9	8.4
5	Bitdefender	8	8	8	10	9	8.5
6	Cynet	8	9	10	7	8	8.5
7	Sophos	8	8	9	6	9	8.1
8	Trend Micro	8	7	7	6	9	7.6
9	Uptycs	8	7	7	4	10	7.5
10	Trellix	8	7	6	4	9	7.2
11	WithSecure	7	7	8	7	8	7.3
12	Cybereason	8	8	8	4	9	7.7

Weighted averages rounded to one decimal. Rank reflects overall buyer fit including the market notes below. Scores are editorial assessments informed by published independent evaluation results, not our own testing.

What EDR Actually Costs — The Retention Trap

Per-endpoint pricing is the number vendors lead with. Retention is the number that decides your bill.

Base EDR tiers commonly include a short telemetry retention window sometimes as little as a week. That is fine for detecting something happening now. It is useless for answering “what did the attacker do?” when dwell time was six weeks, which is common.

Ask every vendor these three questions:

1. How many days of full endpoint telemetry are retained at the tier you’re quoting?

2. What does 30 days cost? What does 90 cost? What does a year cost?

3. Is retention priced per endpoint, or by data volume ingested?

The gap between the headline price and the price with the retention you actually need is frequently 2–3×. This is the single most useful negotiation insight in the category.

Other cost mechanics worth knowing:

• Modular pricing accumulates. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne sell EDR as a base with identity, cloud, and log modules on top. The quote grows as you add the things you assumed were included.

• Managed services are separately priced, and often the better buy. If nobody watches the console overnight, MDR on a cheaper EDR beats premium EDR nobody monitors.

• Cynet’s model is genuinely different. It bundles prevention, EDR, deception, and a 24/7 SOC into a single per-endpoint price, which for lean teams often undercuts buying those pieces separately.

• Microsoft Defender P2 is included in E5. For organizations already licensed, this is the cheapest competitive EDR available, full stop.

The Twelve, Scored

CrowdStrike — 8.6/10.

Perfect detection score. Richest telemetry, elite threat intelligence tools, OverWatch managed hunting.

Cost profile: modular per-endpoint, published SMB entry pricing then quotes.

Watch for: module accumulation; the July 2024 faulty content update that caused widespread Windows failures made update-staging controls a standard due diligence question ask CrowdStrike and everyone else.

Image ALT: CrowdStrike Falcon EDR process tree and detection detail

SentinelOne — 8.6/10.

Perfect response score. On-agent autonomous containment and one-click ransomware rollback on Windows; Storyline correlates events into a single narrative automatically, establishing its place among top cybersecurity companies.

Cost profile: tiered per endpoint, some published SMB pricing.

Watch for: automation needs tuning; retention is tiered.

Image ALT: SentinelOne Singularity Storyline correlation and rollback

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint — 8.5/10.

Strong detection with the best pricing transparency of the leaders, and effectively free in an E5 estate, with correlation across identity, email, and cloud aligned with a Zero Trust security framework that no third party can replicate.

Cost profile: included in Microsoft 365 E5; P1/P2 standalone with published list pricing.

Watch for: full EDR needs P2 or E5; macOS and Linux trail Windows.

Image ALT: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint advanced hunting and incident graph

Bitdefender — 8.5/10.

The only perfect pricing transparency score among the serious contenders, with detection that genuinely competes under modern network security best practices.

Cost profile: published per-endpoint pricing across SMB and mid-market tiers.

Watch for: hunting flexibility and threat intelligence below the leaders.

Image ALT: Bitdefender GravityZone EDR root cause analysis

Cynet — 8.5/10.

A perfect analyst burden score. Cynet bundles prevention, EDR, network analytics, deception, and a 24/7 managed SOC into one price explicitly designed for teams that don’t have dedicated analysts.A perfect analyst burden score.

Cost profile: all-inclusive per-endpoint pricing; partially published.

Watch for: individual components are less deep than best-of-breed; smaller enterprise reference base.

Image ALT: Cynet all-in-one endpoint protection and 24/7 SOC console

Palo Alto Cortex XDR — 8.4/10.

Strong across detection, response, and analyst burden thanks to native correlation with network, next-generation firewalls, and cloud data.

Cost profile: per endpoint plus data ingestion; quote-based.

Watch for: ingestion pricing needs explicit modelling this is where budgets overrun; deepest value inside a Palo Alto estate.

Image ALT: Palo Alto Cortex XDR cross-source incident correlation

Sophos — 8.1/10.

Strong analyst burden score from guided investigations designed for teams without extensive network security tools experience.

Cost profile: per user or endpoint, partner-quoted with published SMB guidance.

Watch for: telemetry depth trails the leaders; retention limited at lower tiers; the February 2025 Secureworks acquisition raises reasonable portfolio-positioning questions.

Image ALT: Sophos Intercept X EDR guided investigation

Huntress — Managed EDR

Huntress Managed EDR combines endpoint detection and response (EDR) with a 24/7 AI-assisted SOC, human threat experts, active remediation, and threat hunting, helping reduce the day-to-day alert and investigation burden on internal teams.

Cost profile: transparent per-endpoint pricing; Huntress currently lists Managed EDR at $8.99 per endpoint/month, including 24/7 threat detection and response.

Watch for: Huntress is a managed EDR/MDR-oriented platform, rather than a direct equivalent to Cybereason’s MalOp-centric investigation model.

Confirm whether its managed workflow, integrations, and response controls meet your organization’s investigation and enterprise requirements.

Image ALT: Huntress Managed EDR threat detection, investigation, and automated response

Trend Micro — 7.6/10.

Best-in-class server, container, and cloud security solutions coverage, correlated with email and network in Vision One.

Cost profile: per endpoint or credit-based; partly published.

Watch for: credit consumption model requires modelling; console complexity.

Image ALT: Trend Micro Vision One endpoint and workload detection

Uptycs — 7.5/10.

The only perfect coverage score here. Uptycs is built on osquery and open-source security tools with unusually strong Linux and cloud-native visibility, unifying endpoint and cloud telemetry in one data model.

Cost profile: per endpoint or asset; quote-based.

Watch for: Windows-centric organizations will find the specialists more polished; smaller enterprise footprint.

Image ALT: Uptycs unified endpoint and cloud telemetry for Linux environments

WithSecure — 7.3/10.

The former F-Secure business arm, with solid detection, a modular consumption model, and clear European cloud access security and data protection.

Cost profile: modular per-endpoint; partner-quoted with some published guidance.

Watch for: smaller reference base outside Europe; hunting depth below the leaders.

Image ALT: WithSecure Elements endpoint detection and response

Trellix — 7.2/10.

Mature enterprise policy control and deep configurability from the combined McAfee Enterprise and FireEye endpoint technology, with flexible cloud or on-premises security controls deployment available.

Cost profile: per endpoint, quote-based.

Watch for: portfolio consolidation warrants a roadmap conversation; heaviest agent here; lowest analyst-burden score.

Image ALT: Trellix endpoint detection and response investigation

How to Compare EDR Quotes

Normalize retention before anything else. Get every vendor to quote the same retention period 30 days minimum, 90 if your incident response process demands it. Comparing base-tier prices with different retention windows is comparing different products.

Check your Microsoft licensing. Defender for Endpoint P2 is in Microsoft 365 E5. If you hold E5 and are buying third-party EDR, you should be able to articulate why in one sentence. “macOS depth” and “we don’t want vendor concentration” are both valid; “nobody checked” is not.

Price the managed service alongside. Ask each vendor what their MDR costs on top. Then compare “cheap EDR plus MDR” against “premium EDR unmonitored.” For most organizations under a few hundred staff, the first option is both cheaper and safer.

Test the analyst experience, not the detection rate. In your proof of concept, run an adversary emulation and measure three things: what was detected, how many alerts it generated, and how long it took someone to reach a conclusion. The third number predicts your operating cost.

Ask about update staging. Rollout rings, content update delays for critical systems, and documented rollback. Every vendor, every time.

Common mistakes: buying an EDR tier nobody monitors; discovering retention is seven days after the incident; and treating EDR as a replacement for patch management and identity controls rather than a complement.

Cost-Focused FAQ

How much does EDR cost?

EDR is licensed per endpoint per year, with tiers determining telemetry retention, hunting capability, and managed services.

Bitdefender and Microsoft publish list pricing; CrowdStrike and SentinelOne publish small-business entry pricing then move to quotes; the rest are largely quote-based. Retention length is the single biggest variable and can multiply the base price.

Which EDR is cheapest?

For Microsoft 365 E5 organizations, Defender for Endpoint P2 is included and effectively free the cheapest competitive EDR available. Among standalone products, Bitdefender publishes the most accessible pricing with genuinely strong detection.

Cynet’s all-inclusive model, which bundles a 24/7 SOC, often undercuts buying EDR and MDR separately.

Is there free EDR?

Not at enterprise grade. Microsoft Defender Antivirus is free in Windows but full EDR requires P2 or E5 licensing.

Open-source options such as Wazuh and osquery-based tooling provide real capability at no licence cost, but require substantial engineering effort to deploy, tune, and maintain the cost moves to staff time.

What is EDR telemetry retention and why does it matter?

Retention is how long the platform stores detailed endpoint activity data. Short retention lets you investigate what is happening now; longer retention lets you reconstruct an intrusion that began weeks ago, which is common since attacker dwell time is often measured in weeks.

Base tiers frequently include very short retention, and extending it is the main driver of quote variation.

Should I buy EDR or MDR?

If nobody in your organization will monitor alerts around the clock, buy MDR an unmonitored EDR is an expensive audit log.

Many organizations get better value from a mid-priced EDR plus a managed service than from a premium EDR nobody watches. Cynet’s bundled model exists specifically for this situation.

Does Microsoft Defender count as real EDR?

Yes. Defender for Endpoint P2 provides full endpoint detection and response including advanced hunting, automated investigation and remediation, and response actions, and it performs competitively in independent evaluations.

The considerations are licensing tier, relative macOS and Linux depth, and whether vendor concentration is acceptable not capability.

Bottom Line

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 is the value answer for any E5 organization and should be your baseline before considering anything else. Bitdefender is the best standalone value with published pricing you can budget from.

CrowdStrike and SentinelOne justify their premium if you’ll use the depth CrowdStrike for detection and hunting, SentinelOne for autonomous response.

Cynet deserves a serious look from lean teams because bundling the SOC into the price often beats assembling the pieces.

Whatever you shortlist, normalize on retention before comparing a single price that’s where this category hides its real cost.

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