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Darktrace vs Stellar Cyber Open XDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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...
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Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Darktrace
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (10th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (11th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (10th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th), AI Observability (7th)
Stellar Cyber Open XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
40th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (43rd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (29th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (58th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (17th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (24th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (21st), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.5%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 4.3%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Stellar Cyber Open XDR is 2.1%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.5%
Darktrace4.3%
Stellar Cyber Open XDR2.1%
Other89.1%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

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.
Pasan Jayarathna - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Cyberwell Solution
Monitoring has improved data loss detection and now spots abnormal internal file transfers quickly
In my understanding, the best feature Darktrace offers is the identification of copying files, which acts as a DLP, and it is a main concern for companies because users sometimes copy data outside without knowing, especially those without a technical background. When I mention the DLP-like feature and file copying detection, the alerts have been very timely, as we get an alert within a couple of minutes, which is excellent. Even if some developers are working after hours and copying files, our SOC team detects this, and most of the time they call us so we can identify the users. The alerts are quite accurate and proactive.
Hrishiraj Bhattacharjee - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder & CEO at Team Karimganj
Correlates incidents, allows for quicker identification and helps prioritize investigations
The only challenge is, and that’s where we come into play, it’s a pretty high-tech platform. So, it’s difficult for small and medium-sized organizations to manage it on their own. It’s a very complex system. It requires a lot of expertise. All my guys who work on it have gone through certification from Stellar itself. There are three different certifications that you need to complete. Only then are you certified by Stellar to work on it. It’s a very complex platform. Not everyone can use it. A simple IT engineer or system admin won’t be able to handle it because it’s quite complex. You need to have an understanding of the industry, the subject, and the tool. So, just purchasing this tool or license and then using it on your own would be very difficult to configure and manage on a day-to-day basis. The pricing model is not suitable for small and medium companies, particularly small companies. The minimum pricing model they have is suitable for companies with more than one thousand users. So, if someone has 50 to 100 users, like typical small companies, it’s difficult for them because the cost involved is high. Stellar would charge you for those thousand users, but you do not need all those users. So what are they going to do? I guess Stellar does not want to target small companies directly and maybe relies on resellers and MSPs like us to sell it. So, that is something I would recommend changing. Otherwise, it’s a great tool, but because of the pricing model, small companies are unable to leverage the advantage of this beautiful tool. So, the pricing model should be suitable for small and medium businesses. The product currently has vulnerability monitoring and everything. But if they could also do something about vulnerability management and maybe patch management, that would be nice.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a simple platform to use."
"I recognize that Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is one of the best products in its category regarding capabilities."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks's ability to block sophisticated threats in real time is quite good and is on par with SentinelOne's."
"If the user leaves our premises or network, Palo Alto Traps will still be on that endpoint and will still apply our policies."
"Traps is quite a stable product. Once it was properly deployed and configured, you have nothing to be worried about."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"The good thing about the product is that it's always scanning."
"The best feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is that it collects logs from different sections such as the endpoint, the network, and the cloud, making it easy to investigate alerts, collect some of the investigation packages related to the infected machines, and provide live response."
"Darktrace has improved our knowledge of abnormal phenomenen which could have potentially be hazardous for the organization."
"One thing I appreciate is Antigena Email, which is for email protection."
"The solution automatically monitors everything on the network to prevent anti-phishing by monitoring, responding, and restoring the system."
"Because of unsupervised machine learning, its detection capability is quite good."
"This solution can reduce the resources required to run a security operation center by two-thirds."
"The AI-based pattern is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the endpoint protection."
"The autonomous mode, which is the Antigena AI response, is particularly valuable."
"Stellar Cyber Open XDR offers these functionalities at a more affordable price, making it easier for me to position it with price-sensitive customers."
"It can integrate with almost any cybersecurity tool available in the market."
 

Cons

"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"Data privacy is a matter of concern. You have to be careful with data privacy, it can be sensitive and Cortex can have most of your access."
"Currently, we are monitoring all USB drives and ports but we would like to improve our device control capabilities."
"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."
"The dashboard could use some significant improvement, just making it more useful with more information. It has a limited amount of information right now. It is customizable, but I'd love to see a better out-of-box dashboard."
"The solution should force customers to integrate with network traffic to see the full benefits of XDR."
"There are some false positives."
"The downsides of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks are that in many incidents, when I enter the causality chain, there are numerous logs."
"The pricing is based on the number of endpoints, so the program is rather expensive."
"The dashboard and reporting for this solution could be improved as it is currently complex. The GUI for this solution could also be improved."
"If asked to rate Darktrace support on a scale from zero to ten where ten is the best, I would give them five points."
"Darktrace should have more automation and integrations with other security monitoring tools."
"This product needs more in terms of prevention."
"It could build in integrations for some complementary products, but it has an assistant plugin so this is not really a big deal."
"This product needs more in terms of prevention. The detection capabilities work well but once a threat has been detected, Darktrace should work to prevent it from doing anything malicious."
"We'd like threat hunting, and we'd like to see a global solution that can automate vulnerability scans. I know it is something they are working on."
"Support is an issue because they have a limited number of resources."
"I would rate the stability at about five to six. The platform requires some fine-tuning, especially when integrating data sources and creating connectors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"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."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. I have customers that have voiced that the solution is good for the value but if I want to sell more of the solution the price reduction would help."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"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."
"In the ballpark, we're talking about $30K, $50K, and up. It can even be as much as $50K or $100K."
"The pricing is a little high compared to the competition."
"The cost of the solution can be reduced to make it more appealing to customers."
"I'm unfamiliar with the exact cost, but we have a yearly license and had to pay for Darktrace's services before the deployment. The product is very expensive, so some organizations can't afford to pay the total amount directly, meaning they often seek a partner or pay in installments, which increases the price more."
"The pricing is quite high, estimated at around $350,000 per year."
"They are too expensive compared with other vendors."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
"Darktrace is quite an expensive solution."
"It’s a single license platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise29
No data available
 

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. ...
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 th...
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,...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing u...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Darktrace?
Concerning pricing for the product, I would say it is somewhat expensive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Stellar Cyber Open XDR?
Pricing is a major benefit of Stellar Cyber Open XDR. I rate it between three and four on the cost scale. It offers f...
What needs improvement with Stellar Cyber Open XDR?
I am currently evaluating Stellar Cyber Open XDR in terms of their support. I do not see any major areas for improvem...
What is your primary use case for Stellar Cyber Open XDR?
I use Stellar Cyber Open XDR ( /products/stellar-cyber-open-xdr-reviews ) as a 24/7 security monitoring tool, especia...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Sumitomo Chemical USA, PlastiPak Packaging, University of Denver, Large California State Agency, Large Midwestern American City
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace vs. Stellar Cyber Open XDR and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
911,039 professionals have used our research since 2012.