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Darktrace vs Stellar Cyber Open XDR comparison

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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...
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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) (19th), 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

"The solution's most valuable feature is the user interface."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"Traps has drastically reduced our endpoint attack surface via advanced detection capabilities, sandboxing of never before seen programs, and by drastically limiting where executables can launch in the first place."
"Implementing Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks has had a significant impact on my security analyst workload because it becomes much easier."
"The product is very good, it has caught a lot of exploits that most products would not."
"Automation and playbooks have helped me significantly, as Cortex Xnor's playbooks predefine the workflow of the automation, such as response processes, alert triggering, and enriching the context, efficiently detecting and blocking malicious attacks with firewalls while eliminating workload and speeding responses for next-generation operations."
"Its interface and pricing are most valuable. It is better than other vendors in terms of security."
"They have a new GUI which is just fantastic."
"Because of all it does, Darktrace is a very good solution, and it doesn't take a lot of time to implement and to get results."
"The autonomous response is also highly designed in Darktrace."
"The NDR is good in their solution and they have NTG for email."
"DT console and alerting system allow getting detailed information about the behavior of users and malicious external or internal threats."
"The Dynamic Threat Dashboard is very nice, as it lists all of your threats and rates them, and then you can choose whether to investigate further."
"We are able to detect a lot of things, actually, and see what is happening in our network."
"I can rate Darktrace's technical support as one of the best products in the world."
"I highly recommend the overall solution to other users and rate it as nine out of ten."
"It can integrate with almost any cybersecurity tool available in the market."
"Stellar Cyber Open XDR offers these functionalities at a more affordable price, making it easier for me to position it with price-sensitive customers."
 

Cons

"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
"The onboarding process could be better."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can improve mobile integration to allow access to the console."
"The server sometimes stops continuously to check things so it would be helpful to receive access updates or technical reasons."
"Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR does not detect malicious activity like in other anti-virus solutions like Trend Micro and Windows with Cisco."
"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 is not easy to sell Cortex XDR, not because it isn't a good tool. Its marketing needs to be improved."
"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."
"The level of tracking within the network from the transmission level up to the machine level can use improvement."
"I would like to see more protection in the endpoint. Especially because we have a lot of people using VPNs."
"It would be helpful if they could recognize incidents and simplify the customer's challenge to identify what is happening."
"There is no dedicated salesperson in Egypt, and having one would help to improve focus on this market."
"With Darktrace, at the moment, I have to almost put in a date and tell them that I want you to give me data from this date to this date."
"Darkforce could be improved in the range of the interface; how to interact with the actions it's taking or not taking."
"The level of tracking within the network from the transmission level up to the machine level can use improvement."
"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

"The tool's price is moderate."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"Cortex XDR is a costly solution."
"I don't recall what the cost was, but it wasn't really that expensive."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"In terms of the cost Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very expensive because we are a Mexican company and when you translate dollars to pesos the cost is very high. The solution is very expensive for Mexican companies. I understand that they have international prices, but I do not think it offsets the price enough for many companies in countries, such as Mexico. The amount it is reduced is not a massive percentage."
"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"If you consider the features and the cost of market leaders, we are satisfied with the pricing."
"It's an expensive solution."
"It was $3,600 a month or $2,000 plus or so. I am not sure. Its licensing is pretty simple."
"The price of Darktrace is high and could be reduced. We pay approximately $30,000 to $54,000 annually."
"The pricing is a little high compared to the competition."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
"It is expensive. I don't have the price for other competitors."
"The cost of the solution is expensive for smaller businesses. They will not be able to afford it or might not need this type of security solution."
"It’s a single license platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
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.
887,041 professionals have used our research since 2012.