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Binary Defense MDR vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Binary Defense MDR
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (7th)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Binary Defense MDR and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Binary Defense MDR is designed for Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and holds a mindshare of 0.7%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, on the other hand, focuses on Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP), holds 4.2% mindshare, down 5.4% since last year.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Rich Ullom - PeerSpot reviewer
Worth the money, fantastic communication, and fast service with an average response time of about four minutes on an alert
This is my third SOC. I have never had anybody react as well. So, it's hard for me to provide something that they could do better because I'm really happy with them. I just signed another three-year contract with them. I don't find any downside to them, but if I have to put one, it would be consistent manpower or staffing. The only area where the solution can be improved is going to be with people. As they grow, they are struggling with the same thing that every other company is, which is getting talent and getting that talent to stay, but they've just revised their tiering system to go from a flat analyst and manager to a three-tier solution where it goes through two or three before it gets elevated. That seems to have worked out well, so if one level misses it, the next one picks it up, and it works out fine. Consistent staffing is the only challenge they have because when you're hiring level-one analysts, you go through them pretty quickly. You'll probably hire them at 50K or 55K, and after they do it for a year, they find out they can make 85K somewhere else, and they bounce. So, their turnover is a little high, but that's it.
Mohammad Qaw - PeerSpot reviewer
Perfect correlation and XDR capabilities for network traffic plus endpoint security
The solution should force customers to integrate with network traffic to see the full benefits of XDR. If you are not integrating it or feeding in your network traffic, then you are just buying a normal antivirus which doesn't make any sense. You are paying double the price to use the antivirus feature or to say you have XDR, but in reality you are not using it. The solution should include an on-premises option because some customers want only on-premises. It would be hard, but good to do if possible. Open XDR would be beneficial in the future. Right now, the solution is Closed XDR so cannot communicate with the few new vendors in the Open XDR market.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In the six months we have been with Binary Defense on this, they run with the ball. They take care of our problems. When we get a ticket, they do not just give us a report."
"Binary Defense is comprehensive. We see most of the questionable activity. Once you see things a couple of times and are familiar with the processes, you know what those are. The level of activity is definitely favorable."
"The biggest aspect for us is that they are able to conform to our environment and utilize our tools. That way, we still maintain ownership of all the data and access to the applications, and we never lose control of the ability to run the solution ourselves if we need to."
"Binary Defense's most valuable feature is the 24/7 monitoring and threat hunting. Their team checks the latest breaches and how they're done."
"The most valuable features are the SIEM and the ticketing function; the latter is very smooth and easy to read and understand. We don't have any issues looking at the ticketing information when we're trying to identify what's going on."
"The speed at which their services are reactive is valuable. Nowadays, when a threat hits an endpoint, you've got minutes, not hours or days. Their average response time is about four minutes on an alert. For anything that needs to be sent to us, it's about fourteen minutes, which is pretty good. They're the third SOC that I've used in fifteen years. By far, they are the quickest ones to act. When you're looking at prevention, that's a key factor."
"Among the valuable features are the agent, continuous reporting, and dashboard. It has all the features we need and we haven't had to customize it, other than turning on certain features that we wanted."
"The case interface is Binary Defense MDR's most valuable feature."
"Cortex XDR features advanced threat detection capabilities."
"The initial setup is easy."
"If any application performs suspicious activities, such as changing registries or modifying other applications, Cortex XDR detects and blocks the entire application."
"The user interface of the solution is sophisticated and straightforward."
"They have a new GUI which is just fantastic."
"Traps has drastically reduced our endpoint attack surface via advanced detection capabilities, sandboxing of never before seen programs, and by drastically limiting where executables can launch in the first place."
"The most valuable feature is that you can select remote access of any machine for sandboxing."
"We've had a significant increase in blocking with a decrease in false positives, because it's looking at how the files work, not just a list of files that it's been told to look for."
 

Cons

"It's hard to think of anything that they need to improve on, but just to point out something, I would like to see them provide advanced XDR."
"We found a couple of bugs in the user interface."
"I would like to get more reports from Binary Defense about what they're blocking."
"We should be able to isolate devices faster. They should shorten the time between clicking on a device to contain it and carrying out the action. That would be a welcome improvement."
"We found that an earlier version of the agent had high memory usage and that was a bit concerning, but we raised the concern with their support team and they immediately replied that they had noticed the same thing and had a candidate fix already available... it totally fixed the issue."
"It's sometimes difficult to know when to engage Binary Defense or TrustedSec, their sister company. TrustedSec is more focused on offensive security, as opposed to the defensive security that the MDR solution provides. It would be awesome if there were a better bridge between that relationship for when we need to get more proactive services or when we need to do a penetration test."
"While my understanding is that they're working on this, I would like to see some more of the quantification or reporting."
"The only area for improvement that I can think of relates to statistical analysis for SLAs. They are in the middle of moving to a new product called D3 which is going to do some backend work for them. I know they are working to improve some of the help desk statistics, such as the time the tickets open and the time they are closed."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by adding a sandbox feature to better compete with their competitors which have it."
"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"The solution could improve by providing better integration with their own products and others."
"A little bit more automation would be nice."
"Currently, if you use Palo Alto endpoint protection as the only solution it's very complicated to remove pre-existing threats."
"In the next release, I would like to see more UI improvements. Their UI is a bit basic. When we are speaking about Palo Alto Networks they are the big company, so they can improve the UI a little bit. The UI, the reports, the log system can all be improved."
"There are some third-party solutions that are difficult to integrate with, which is something that can be improved."
"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is spot on; if anything, it's slightly below the norm for most services. Compared to building the same team internally, it would cost more to create the same amount of capability than what we get from an external team. Price-wise, Binary Defense is in a great spot."
"From the initial cost that Binary Defense came in with, we pared it down quite a bit over the course of 30 or 60 days. My leadership would say that their cost was high, but realistically, they were in line with the market."
"It has been good. We have saved money, and we have a better product."
"The pricing is on target. Working with their sales team on pricing negotiations was a pleasant process. They were very respectful of the constraints we had and I feel that we're paying a fair price."
"The pricing is very good. They are definitely competitive and they were lower at the time that we went with them."
"After we acquired this platform, we met with a number of different vendors. Binary Defense came in with a proposal that was surprisingly affordable. In fact, we were able to recoup the cost of their services within a short period of time. This is because Binary Defense is able to provide the same level of security as a team of two or three in-house analysts but at a fraction of the cost. As a result, Binary Defense is saving us an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 per year."
"It's valued at the right price. Even with the number of endpoints we have, we don't feel that it's a lot more than any competitor. In fact, it might be less expensive when you look at the fact that you're getting a full flex SOC out of it along with the tools."
"Binary Defense has changed its pricing model from being primarily based on the volume of data to one based on escalations and incidents they handle."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"Very costly product."
"The solution has one subscription for endpoint protection and one subscription for detection and response. The two licenses combined give you the BRO version."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"The price was fine."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Binary Defense MDR?
The most valuable feature is reviewing tickets and the notes added by technicians.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Binary Defense MDR?
It has been good. We have saved money, and we have a better product. We are a company that has become an enterprise from a small medium business in two years. Our company passed a certain dollar ma...
What needs improvement with Binary Defense MDR?
We are going to have a meeting with them the following Monday. It will be our first quarterly business review. Half of it is going to be looking at new products and new functions that they are brin...
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Also Known As

Binary Defense Vision, Binary Defense Managed Detection and Response, Binary Defense Managed Detection & Response
Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Securitas USA, Black Hills Energy, Lincoln Electric,The J.M. Smuckers Company, New York Community Bank, State of Connecticut, NCR
CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Huntress, Arctic Wolf Networks and others in Managed Detection and Response (MDR). Updated: January 2025.
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