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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
6th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
39th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
23rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (23rd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (10th), Threat Deception Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.4%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.4%
Rapid7 InsightIDR1.2%
Other95.4%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
SohailHyder - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Cyber Security at Super Secure
Has supported compliance needs for mid-sized organizations but lacks customization and advanced integration
If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as a SIEM solution is. This is where it can improve if we keep in front the feature sets of a complete SIEM solution. Most common in the market is QRadar, but it is depleting now. It has been taken over by some other products such as Splunk and LogRhythm. If we compare these things with Rapid7 InsightIDR, then there are definitely some gaps that need to be filled. Data retention is also one concern because Rapid7 InsightIDR is cloud-based and operates on a subscription model. Whatever data you want to retain, it has to be paid for separately or it has a cost. Other solutions that are on-premises can have their own infrastructure or they provide some data retention for a month or in some capacity-wise, they provide that solution to them which makes them more attractive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can use Cortex XDR to get the entire graph of the incidents from source to destination, and we can take remedial action."
"The positive impacts I see from Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks include a complete 360-degree view of our security posture altogether, being a uniform platform where we are ingesting logs from multiple resources."
"The user interface of the solution is sophisticated and straightforward."
"These days it's machine-learning technology and behavior-based analytics features that make us more secure."
"It blocks malicious files. It prevents attacks. It doesn't require many updates, it's a very light application."
"Cortex XDR alerts us on the dashboard when there's a threat, which allows us to restrict that user and helps secure our infrastructure."
"One of the main benefits of the solution is its intelligence to correlate the events into an incident."
"It has absolutely improved the way our organization functions, we are more secure, it is giving us more peace of mind, and it has found malicious activity happening on our endpoints that probably would not have been detected if we didn't have it."
"InsightIDR helps us investigate an environment to discover information about incidents."
"Integration with threat modeling from the Metasploit and InsightIDR repositories."
"​​User behavioral analytics allows us to pinpoint abnormal or suspicious behavior among millions of events every day."
"I like that it's a cloud-based solution."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR integrates well with other solutions. It's also easy to configure because Rapid7 InsightIDR has a lot of instructions posted on their website that customers can follow if they need to get the source log."
"Rapid7's reporting is more robust than Tenable's."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. As a cloud tool, the product is highly scalable."
"Features for user behavior analytics and the rules for attack review are good."
 

Cons

"I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response)."
"While using Cortex, I noticed some aspects that could be improved, such as increasing the synchronization speed between XDR and Xnor."
"While using Cortex, I noticed some aspects that could be improved, such as increasing the synchronization speed between XDR and Xnor."
"It is not a suitable solution if you are looking for a single product with multiple features such as DLP, encryption, rollback, etc."
"The solution should force customers to integrate with network traffic to see the full benefits of XDR."
"The GUI could be improved."
"They are charging for Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) services, so if the per GB data could be provided at a certain level free of cost or at the same cost which the customer is taking for the entire bundle, that would be better."
"Dashboards do not allow everyone to see what's happening."
"There are certain limitations with Rapid7 that I am working on."
"Personally, I feel it would greatly benefit from more supported log sources."
"The ability to tune the collector for custom logs would greatly help."
"They should add more configuration and security features to it."
"The product allows us to make only 30 custom rules."
"I'd like to be able to get the compliance report within the solution which is currently not possible."
"The interface for doing investigation needs to be enhanced with minor improvements that would make it more useful."
"I would like the ability to adjust the threshold of certain existing alerts. Currently the only option is to change the notifications or create my own alert."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"I am using the Community edition."
"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."
"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"I feel it is fairly priced."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
"​I am sure that there are cheaper products out there, but none that meet so many of our needs whilst maintaining stability and usability.​"
"Licensing is by endpoint and amount of retention time (at least ours is). Default retention was one year, but we are able to push the retention further if needed. There's also a provide-your-own-S3 option for longer retention if you don't want to pay for the additional retention years in your Rapid7 agreement."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is priced very well and is cost-effective."
"The pricing and licensing are competitive."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is a cheaply priced product. On a scale of one to ten, where one is very expensive, and ten is very cheap, I rate the product's price at seven or eight."
"The pricing is good, and it is not very expensive."
"It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise48
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. The ability to reverse damage caused by ransomware with minimal interruptions to...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions that are very scalable, secure, and user-friendly. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto offers ...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightIDR?
If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as a SIEM solution is. This is where it can improve if we keep in front the feature...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
InsightIDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,611 professionals have used our research since 2012.