No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Darktrace vs Stellar Cyber Open XDR comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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...
Sponsored
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (7th), 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 (8th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (9th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th), AI Observability (6th)
Stellar Cyber Open XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
36th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (48th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (27th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (55th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (17th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (24th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (20th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.9%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 5.0%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Stellar Cyber Open XDR is 2.1%, up from 1.5% 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 Networks4.9%
Darktrace5.0%
Stellar Cyber Open XDR2.1%
Other88.0%
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.
AM
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
Consistent threat hunting and anomaly detection deliver valuable insights for network security management
In terms of improvement for Darktrace, pricing is the main concern. Pricing bothers me and this is one of the major factors when choosing a solution. When we get feedback from customers, that's the only felt need. When we factor in Darktrace, we do it only limited. We put it on where the perimeters and connections are, but still, some gray areas are left out, especially if we have multiple branches. We need Darktrace on each branch to get the data out, and I suggest having some kind of a centralized product that gets data from multiple sources to aggregate and provide the data.
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 has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"I have found the solution to be very easy in respect of the integration and configurable."
"We've had a significant increase in blocking with a decrease in false positives, because it's looking at how the files work, not just a list of files that it's been told to look for."
"Its ability to react to cyber data attacks is awesome."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"The protection offered by this product is good, as is the endpoint reporting."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks saves time in various ways, although the user interface is fairly standard."
"Traps is quite a stable product. Once it was properly deployed and configured, you have nothing to be worried about."
"I have found the most valuable features to be artificial intelligence for cybersecurity, advanced machine learning capabilities, enterprise Immune System, Antigena Network, and Antigena Email. The way the solution detects the threat over the network before it spreads is very good. It notifies you of what the threat is exactly doing and gives you all the details about the execution of that application that had created the threat over your network."
"The most valuable feature has been the behavioral analytics that allows us to monitor all the traffic."
"You have visibility, and it will find anything that you miss with other solutions."
"The solution is outstanding from a monitoring perspective."
"It provides a comprehensive cybersecurity solution that monitors my cloud accounts as well as my local network."
"Darktrace is very stable, and I would rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"The solution can scale."
"The autonomous response is also highly designed in Darktrace."
"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

"Previously, the endpoint would leave the environment, not being on our VPN, essentially unable to interact with the server to upload files. It was unable to retrieve new file verdicts. It was using a thing called "local analysis" to determine if something was a malicious file or not. There was no dynamic analysis."
"I recommend adding a data loss prevention (DLP) solution to Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of DLP policies alongside antivirus policies via a single agent and console, making it more competitive as other OEMs often offer DLP solutions as part of their antivirus products."
"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."
"The configuration could be simplified. I would like to see better protection, specifically to protect email applications."
"If they had pulse rate detection, it would be better."
"It would be good if they could make an exception for applications."
"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 solution lacks real-time, on-demand antivirus."
"The interface and dashboards could be improved for ease-of-use."
"The cost of the solution is quite high."
"The dashboard and reporting for this solution could be improved as it is currently complex. The GUI for this solution could also be improved."
"Block attack capabilities or integration with other SIEM solutions such as IBM QRadar."
"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."
"I would like to see more protection in the endpoint. Especially because we have a lot of people using VPNs."
"There is a high ratio of false positive information."
"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

"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"When we first bought it, it was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. The licensing was straightforward."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"I am using the Community edition."
"The cost is moderate."
"The pricing is a little high compared to the competition."
"All of the other modules, such as the licensing modules, are on par. It's one for one."
"I am using a demo of Darktrace for deployment and testing which is free."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
"Our customers feel that the price of Darktrace is quite high compared to other solutions."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is subscription-based and it is high."
"It’s a single license platform."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions are best for your needs.
890,124 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise48
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise19
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: April 2026.
890,124 professionals have used our research since 2012.