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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 Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th)
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (9th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (20th), Threat Deception Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 7.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 2.8%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Prasanth Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers capabilities in areas like threat intelligence and vulnerability management but needs to improve support
The most valuable feature of the product for managing security events stems from the fact that the product's intelligence part is very good since it offers its own threat intelligence and vulnerability management platform. The tool also has its own cloud security posture management platform. The tool also is a dynamic application security testing platform. The aforementioned tools fall under Rapid7 InsightIDR's kitty. The intelligence and the data that Rapid7 gathers from customers across the globe enrich the quality of its detection capabilities. All other tools in the market depend on third-party solutions for intelligence. Rapid7 InsightIDr has the intelligence part natively available within the product, giving it a good edge over other vendors.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability is a primary factor, and then there's the ease of distribution and policy management."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is easy to use and does not consume a lot of hardware resources."
"The information the dashboard provides is very clear."
"The initial setup isn't too bad."
"It's very stable. I've never experienced downtime for the ASM console or ASM core."
"The solution is a new generation XDR that has a lot of artificial intelligence modules."
"They have a new GUI which is just fantastic."
"The stability of this product is very good."
"Enables the use of honey pots, honey users, and honey files to monitor for suspicious patterns."
"​​User behavioral analytics allows us to pinpoint abnormal or suspicious behavior among millions of events every day."
"It is a very stable solution."
"It improved my organization by building a security alerting program."
"I rate Rapid7 nine out of 10 for affordability"
"If you were on other solutions, you would notice that they use agents from third-party, from open-source, from a native OS, or from other tools. Here, however, it is an agent from Rapid7 itself. This adds to the solution's overall capabilities."
"The solution's initial setup is easy."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. As a cloud tool, the product is highly scalable."
 

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."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by proving hard disk encryption. If it could support this it would be a complete solution."
"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."
"The dashboard is the area that needs to improve so that we can have the ability to drill down without having to go elsewhere to verify results."
"When it comes to core analysis, and security analysis, Cortex needs to provide more information."
"I would like to see some additional features related to email protection included."
"Cortex XDR should have a lightweight agent, and the agent size should not be heavy."
"Currently, we are monitoring all USB drives and ports but we would like to improve our device control capabilities."
"Customised alert recipients need to be added to allow better first-line action and quicker response. Configurable honeypots would be a welcome addition."
"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."
"They should add more configuration and security features to it."
"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."
"Cloud risk assessment is one area where I think they need a lot of improvement."
"Sometimes, it is hard to get the right queries to use. Currently, the tool lacks a pre-made set of queries."
"InsightIDR is only available in a cloud version. Some of our customers prefer an on-prem solution because they want to manage the security within their environment."
"Lacks a mobile application."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"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 return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."
"If one wishes to work with another team or large number of users at a future point, he must purchase a license for them."
"Very costly product."
"I am using the Community edition."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"This is an expensive solution."
"​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 straightforward. If, for some reason, you don’t meet the minimum licensing requirements, there is a third-party managed service that can help."
"It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."
"The pricing and licensing are competitive."
"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing of the solution depends on the user. But there is a yearly licensing cost."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
 

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: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.