Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR

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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)

8th

Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)

Rapid7 InsightIDR

Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)

23rd

Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

18th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (14th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (8th), Threat Deception Platforms (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.4%, down from 4.1% 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) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks	3.4%
Rapid7 InsightIDR	1.2%
Other	95.4%

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH

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.

Read full review

SohailHyder

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution allows us to make investigations. Other XDR solutions also provide similar capabilities but for investigation, Cortex XDR is better."

"If the user leaves our premises or network, Palo Alto Traps will still be on that endpoint and will still apply our policies."

"The initial setup isn't too bad."

"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."

"Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance."

"The ability to kind of stitch everything together and see the actual complete picture is very useful. I guess you'd call it a playbook. Some people call it the forensics analysis of what was happening on particular endpoints when they detected some malicious behavior, and what transpired before that to cause that. It is also very user friendly. The way they have done everything and integrated all the solutions that they've purchased over the years to make it a very seamless, effective product is very good. One thing about Palo Alto is that they take the products or services that they purchase and make them seamless for the end user as compared to some companies that purchase other companies and then just kind of have their products off to the side or keep different interfaces. Palo Alto doesn't do that."

"Monitoring is most valuable."

"The initial setup is easy."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pros

"It is a very stable solution."

"I have seen that Rapid7 InsightIDR provides security to the networks and endpoints in the company."

"I like the tool's user analysis feature."

"Rapid7 InsightIDR is budget-friendly and has a good market position because not everybody can afford to go for LogRhythm or Splunk or QRadar."

"The UI is very good."

"Rapid7's reporting is more robust than Tenable's."

"The ability to ingest Office 365 log files, then process them into events and display them on a map."

"During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an application belongs to a known ransomware group. The system rates the threat, offering a clear detection ratio, such as 97 out of 100. It not only identifies threats but also illustrates the associated behaviors, helping us understand the potential risk to a particular endpoint."

More Rapid7 InsightIDR pros

Cons

"However, if you do not have Palo Alto in your environment, you are paying these additional services just for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, so it is not a cost-effective solution."

"A little bit more automation would be nice."

"It's more focused on network communication. If a customer wants to increase the level of protection and start working with documents, it's impossible to integrate these features into the system. It's more of a communication-oriented system than a content security-oriented system."

"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."

"We would also like to have advanced tech protection and email scanning."

"The setup is quite easy. We had appropriate support from the manager. One thing that was missing was the integration part."

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management. It would be useful to look at the client's issue to fix it."

"It would be good if they could make an exception for applications. Sometimes, it can be a bit of a challenge to make exceptions for certain applications that have been used as rogue."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks cons

"The interface for doing investigation needs to be enhanced with minor improvements that would make it more useful."

"I would like to see more development in InsightIDR towards building their SIEM solution and converting it to XDR."

"The product allows us to make only 30 custom rules."

"The dashboard is an area that could be simplified."

"If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as a SIEM solution is."

"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."

"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."

"Customised alert recipients need to be added to allow better first-line action and quicker response. Configurable honeypots would be a welcome addition."

More Rapid7 InsightIDR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using the Community edition."

"I don't recall what the cost was, but it wasn't really that expensive."

"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."

"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."

"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."

"Cortex XDR's pricing is ok."

"The price of the product is not very economical."

"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

"The pricing and licensing are competitive."

"I rate Rapid7 InsightIDR's price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"Accurately predict your licensing counts as this is a subscription based product."

"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."

"The solution has a mid-range price point in the market"

"The team is very willing to work with companies. My suggestion is to call the Rapid7 sales department and see how they can help."

"Rapid7 InsightIDR is priced very well and is cost-effective."

"The pricing of the solution depends on the user. But there is a yearly licensing cost."

More Rapid7 InsightIDR pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	42
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	6

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 do you like most about Rapid7 InsightIDR?

During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its origin, and potential threats. For instance, it can identify if an applicati...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 InsightIDR?

The product pricing is very cheap.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

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Splunk Enterprise Security vs Rapid7 InsightIDR

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CrowdStrike Falcon vs Rapid7 InsightIDR

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Product Reports

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Download Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks product report

Rapid7 InsightIDR

Download Rapid7 InsightIDR product report

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps

InsightIDR

Overview

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks provides advanced threat detection with AI-driven endpoint protection and seamless integration, ensuring multi-layered security and automatic threat response.

Cortex XDR is designed to safeguard endpoints against malware and suspicious activities. It offers advanced threat detection and response capabilities using behavioral analysis, AI, and machine learning. It seamlessly integrates with security infrastructures, providing endpoint security, firewall integration, and enhanced visibility in both cloud-based and on-premises environments.

What are the key features of Cortex XDR?

Advanced Threat Detection: Uses AI and machine learning for proactive threat identification.
Multi-layered Security: Combines various security measures for comprehensive protection.
Endpoint Protection: Safeguards against malware and exploits.
Behavioral Analysis: Monitors suspicious activity for early detection.
Automatic Threat Response: Automates responses to neutralize threats.

What benefits should users expect?

Ease of Use: Simplifies security management with intuitive design.
Resource Efficiency: Minimizes impact on system resources.
Integration Capabilities: Works well with existing security setups.
Reduced Analyst Workload: Automates processes to decrease manual intervention.

Organizations in diverse sectors deploy Cortex XDR to protect against malware, leveraging its advanced threat detection capabilities. Its integration with existing security infrastructures appeals to those seeking comprehensive protection in both cloud and on-premises environments, providing enhanced visibility and threat intelligence.

Palo Alto Networks

Parsing hundreds of trivial alerts. Managing a mountain of data. Manually forwarding info from your endpoints. Forget that. InsightIDR instantly arms you with the insight you need to make better decisions across the incident detection and response lifecycle, faster.

Rapid7

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank

Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR