Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

Palo Alto Networks and Rapid7 are both solutions in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category. Palo Alto Networks is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.6, while Rapid7 is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.8. Palo Alto Networks holds a 3.4% mindshare in EDR, compared to Rapid7’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Palo Alto Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Rapid7 users who would recommend it.

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...

Read 104 Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks reviews

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7,882 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Rapid7 InsightIDR

Read 32 Rapid7 InsightIDR reviews

6,954 Views
2,017 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...

Rapid7 InsightIDR

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Cortex XDR and Rapid7 InsightIDR compete in the threat detection and response category. Rapid7 InsightIDR has an edge due to its advanced analytics features, providing detailed threat insights, although it comes at a higher cost.

Features: Cortex XDR offers comprehensive integration, easy threat detection across multiple environments, and unified threat management. Rapid7 InsightIDR delivers strong log management, enriched alerting capabilities, and robust analytical features for deeper threat context.

Room for Improvement: Cortex XDR could benefit from enhanced threat intelligence updates, faster real-time responses, and greater customization flexibility. Rapid7 InsightIDR needs simpler customization options, improved user interface for non-technical users, and streamlined setup processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cortex XDR is known for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Rapid7 InsightIDR offers a fast deployment process, with noted initial challenges that could be alleviated with better customer training, but maintains efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: Cortex XDR is competitive in pricing with solid ROI due to its comprehensive protection features. Rapid7 InsightIDR is more costly but offers high-value returns from superior threat identification, catering to enterprises prioritizing advanced features over budget.

To learn more, read our detailed Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR

December 2025

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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

104

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

"Stability is one of the features we like the most."

"It's a nice product that's stable and scalable."

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is easy to use and does not consume a lot of hardware resources."

"The product has an intuitive dashboard."

"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 normal protection was really effective, and we detected situations that if we didn't have Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, it's highly likely that we would have been affected, but it protected the infrastructure."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the user interface."

"The solution is a new generation XDR that has a lot of artificial intelligence modules."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pros

"I am able to run automated actions based on the output of reports, leaving me extra time to focus on more pressing matters."

"Rapid7 is easy to use and deploy. It is a simple solution and has easy data pulling."

"Integration with threat modeling from the Metasploit and InsightIDR repositories."

"The technical support is a solid 10 out of 10 as they take the time to answer any questions or problems which may arise in a reasonable time frame."

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

"We were able to identify criminals attempting to login from China and put a stop on their IP locations."

"Log search allows us to dive deep into aggregated logs and query all event types at once."

"The biggest reason why we chose Rapid7 was to gain value in a really quick time. Its deployment doesn't take months. It just takes a few days."

More Rapid7 InsightIDR pros

Cons

"There's an overall lack of features."

"Dashboards do not allow everyone to see what's happening."

"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."

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a very good product, but financially, it is very expensive, so the company should look into that area."

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

"While using Cortex, I noticed some aspects that could be improved, such as increasing the synchronization speed between XDR and Xnor."

"Impact on system performance is horrible, adding a lot of delays for users."

"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks cons

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

"The reporting is the weakest aspect. There needs to be multi-level grouping for events (for example, group by user and destination). Right now, we can do a group by user and a separate table or group by destination. But I'd be more interested in where a person was logging into instead of who was logging in or where he was logging in."

"The searching feature in Rapid7 InsightIDR needs to evolve"

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

"It would be useful to import threat intelligence in YARA format along with known incorrect email addresses."

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

"There are certain limitations with Rapid7 that I am working on."

"Lacks a mobile application."

More Rapid7 InsightIDR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."

"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."

"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."

"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."

"I did PoCs on products called Cylance and CrowdStrike. Although, I consider these products and they were also good, when it come to cost and budgetary factors, Traps has been proven to be better than the other two products. It is quite cost-effective and delivers all the entire solution which we require."

"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."

"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

"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'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."

"It is a reasonably priced solution."

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

"I am sure that there are cheaper products out there, but none that meet so many of our needs whilst maintaining stability and usability."

"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."

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

"It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."

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

Comms Service Provider

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	46

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...

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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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

The product pricing is very cheap.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 9% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Complete vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 5% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 5% of the time

Cortex XSIAM vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

Trellix Endpoint Security Platform vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 3% of the time

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Competitors

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Rapid7 InsightIDR

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Sentinel vs Rapid7 InsightIDR

Compared 5% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Rapid7 InsightIDR

Compared 5% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Rapid7 InsightIDR

Compared 4% of the time

Darktrace vs Rapid7 InsightIDR

Compared 3% of the time

More Rapid7 InsightIDR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

February 2026

Download Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks product report

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 InsightIDR

January 2026

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

Buyer's Guide

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR

December 2025

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