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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

"From a single pane of glass, you can easily manage all of your endpoints."
"Stability is one of the features we like the most."
"It can automatically correlate events and logs, which is very helpful for an IT administrator. It can correlate different kinds of malware activities over a network, agent, or host system. You do not need to do it manually. It is a good feature. It is also a user-friendly solution. We have deployed it on the cloud because our space does not provide any flexibility for on-premises deployment, but Palo Alto has added some flexibility to install it on-premises. It must be like the same Cortex XDR agent for all the VPN services, web filtering services, and everything else."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"The product's most valuable features are massive user and feature intelligence exploit detection."
"Overall, it's a great platform; it integrates very well with other solutions from Palo Alto and also with our vendors, the ease of use is excellent, I love the root cause analysis from Cortex, which is amazing, and in a few clicks you can have the full root cause."
"The product is mostly automated, and we do not have to make decisions, because all the decisions are made by the product itself and we are not required to create any custom policies since the policies that are created are well defined in the product itself."
"These days it's machine-learning technology and behavior-based analytics features that make us more secure."
"Enables the use of honey pots, honey users, and honey files to monitor for suspicious patterns."
"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 most valuable features have to do with ease-of-use, as it is easy to check the events, investigate suspicious activities, and do forensic analysis, and the web interface is great — very useful and user-friendly."
"The alerting to drive investigations and remediation has been its most valuable feature, plus the ability to quickly search multiple logs makes investigations easier."
"The product works well. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It is a very stable solution."
"Intelligent alerting to avoid the common problem of alert fatigue associated with traditional SIEMs."
"Previously, when something happened, such as when a hacker was attacking one of our customers, we were always behind, or we did not know that we were hacked until the ransomware started, but with the Rapid7 solution, at every step, we could online see what a person was doing, and we could prevent ransomware."
 

Cons

"Currently, we are monitoring all USB drives and ports but we would like to improve our device control capabilities."
"There are some limitations on the Traps agents."
"The solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"We have found that there are times Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks does not detect some of the viruses, we have to use another protection solution called Kaspersky."
"The GUI could be improved."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management."
"The GUI could be improved. It's a little bit cumbersome. It could be more user-friendly."
"The tool needs to be improved in terms of integration and interface."
"The reporting is the weakest aspect. There needs to be multi-level grouping for events (for example, group by user and destination)."
"One of the things that could be better is digital forensics. It is there, but it can be better."
"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."
"Rapid7's customer support is awful. They didn't respond at all."
"The dashboard is an area that could be simplified."
"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."
"The ability to tune the collector for custom logs would greatly help."
"If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as a SIEM solution is."
 

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."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"The tool's price is moderate."
"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."
"The solution has a mid-range price point in the market"
"It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."
"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."
"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."
"I rate Rapid7 InsightIDR's price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"The pricing is good, and it is not very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
12%
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 Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise49
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.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.