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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
112
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

"When the pandemic started, Palo Alto came up with many solutions, which helped with the quick shift from on-premises to the cloud."
"The most valuable feature is that you can select remote access of any machine for sandboxing."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"The most valuable aspect of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks for me is its integration with AI detection, where we get to know the behavioral detection based on users, traffic patterns, and different services that we consume."
"We use it for malicious connections from malicious websites, to identify payloads that might be inside the traffic, to identify malicious processes or bugs that are running on the network, and any activities that tend to lead to data infiltration."
"Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance."
"One of the main benefits of the solution is its intelligence to correlate the events into an incident."
"We switched because there were a lot of added features with Palo Alto that Check Point didn't have, and it was an upgrade for us."
"InsightIDR’s ability to process millions of transactions per day, and to notify me of the most critical ones, is priceless. InsightIDR has the alerts tuned, and has the ability to quickly drill down to determine the threat level."
"Intelligent alerting to avoid the common problem of alert fatigue associated with traditional SIEMs."
"The UI is very good."
"It gives all the advantages of a SIEM, however, using clever AI, it looks for patterns of behavior rather than just flooding me with all the alerts."
"InsightIDR has allowed us to find potential security issues that we did not know existed, and get remediation quickly."
"Log search allows us to dive deep into aggregated logs and query all event types at once.​"
"I like that it's a cloud-based solution."
"The incident case management is the most valuable feature, and the ability to quickly sort through all the logs, network and endpoint data, and add it to an incident case as part of the investigation, with automatic timelining and correlation to other notable events and activities on the network, results in a huge improvement in our overall confidence that we have quickly traced down the right source of an issue."
 

Cons

"It is not very strong in terms of endpoint management. It should have additional features like DLP, encryption, or advanced device control. Currently, Cortex is good in terms of the security of the endpoints, but it is not as good as other vendors in terms of the management of the endpoint."
"It would be better if they could educate the customers more. Some sort of seminars and roadshows will help educate the customers and show what the product can do. The price could be better. It would also help if they had a team for deployment and support."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"The dashboard could use some significant improvement, just making it more useful with more information."
"Although I would say this product is highly-rated, it could probably do more because nothing does everything that you want."
"Impact on system performance is horrible, adding a lot of delays for users."
"It is not easy to sell Cortex XDR, not because it isn't a good tool."
"Previously, the endpoint would leave the environment, not being on our VPN, essentially unable to interact with the server to upload files."
"Rapid7's customer support is awful. They didn't respond at all."
"Cloud risk assessment is one area where I think they need a lot of improvement."
"I would like to see more development in InsightIDR towards building their SIEM solution and converting it to XDR."
"Needs a better ability to customize the check within the console."
"I'd like to be able to get the compliance report within the solution which is currently not possible."
"The ability to tune the collector for custom logs would greatly help."
"The solution needs improvement in threat intelligence. Increasing the depth of intelligence to help users understand more about threats is a possibility. My suggestion is to expand access to other websites or resources."
"It would be useful to import threat intelligence in YARA format along with known incorrect email addresses."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is moderate."
"Very costly product."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"Traps pays for itself within the first 16 months of a three-year subscription. This is attributed to OPEX savings, as security teams spent less time trying to identify and isolate malware for analysis as a result of a reduction in malware incidents, false positives, and breach avoidance."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"The cost of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is $55 to $90 USD per endpoint per month."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable but we have challenges with the Minimum Order Quantity. It is not reasonable for customers who have less than one hundred devices. If they can reduce Minimum Order Quantity, it is good. You have to pay around 5000-6000 dollars per year for the product. The pricing includes maintenance and support costs."
"The solution has a mid-range price point in the market"
"​Accurately predict your licensing counts as this is a subscription based product.​"
"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is priced very well and is cost-effective."
"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."
"The team is very willing to work with companies. My suggestion is to call the Rapid7 sales department and see how they can help.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise51
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: May 2026.
896,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.