Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs Vectra AI comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Vectra AI and Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention are leaders in cybersecurity solutions. Palo Alto Networks seems to have an advantage with its comprehensive integration capabilities and user appreciation for its protective features.

Features: Vectra AI uses AI and machine learning to reduce alerts and correlate threats with hosts, providing deep security insights with network metadata capture. It assists in risk score aggregation, helping SOC analysts prioritize threats. Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention offers integration with other Palo Alto tools, enhancing malware detection, traffic inspection, and application behavior checking with signature-based prevention.

Room for Improvement: Vectra AI experiences integration challenges with third-party systems, such as SIEM, and requires better management of false positives and threat context. Palo Alto Networks can improve its IPS capabilities and simplify its complex licensing models, as well as expanding email protection features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Vectra AI offers flexible deployment across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, receiving praise for its responsive technical support, albeit with reliance on specific key personnel. Palo Alto Networks provides similar deployment options and is recognized for its robust customer service, characterized by quick responses and problem-solving.

Pricing and ROI: Vectra AI, while costly, provides value by reducing threat response times, offering ROI as efficient security operations. Its pricing can be prohibitive for some. Palo Alto is also expensive, but its extensive capabilities and scalability cater well to larger enterprises, with ROI seen in preempting attacks and optimizing security measures.

To learn more, read our detailed Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs. Vectra AI Report (Updated: April 2025).

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs. Vectra AI

April 2025

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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

Palo Alto Networks Advanced...

Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Vectra AI

Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Detection and Response (NDR) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (15th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (10th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is 7.4%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vectra AI is 11.3%, up from 10.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

Featured Reviews

Carlos Bracamonte

Senior Network Support Engineer at Amadeus

Robust, reliable, simple to install and good technical support

We are attempting to improve the use of URL filtering beyond threat protection. I'm not sure what the remaining threat protection features are off the top of my head. But beyond that, we use URL filtering. We have three approved cases for using external dynamic lists that are stored in a bucket repository. Then, for each URL site that needs to be whitelisted, we add it to the external dynamic list in order to gain access to this email. I would like Wildfire to be implemented. We use the equivalent in Cisco is the integration policies. We have the Wildfire but we are not currently implementing it. We don't have the license to use it, but we are not currently implementing it until we present the use cases that the company gives some value to and they approve the use of it.

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Mohammad Alkurdi

Owner at Fortibits

Innovative detection features enhance monitoring

The advantages of the integration are not entirely out-of-the-box. You have to do it manually. When I'm doing tier response, an out-of-the-box solution is not available. You need to have a Linux server, and from the Linux server, you must perform AI tasks, and there is a lot to be handled in the back end. This is a major consideration about them. The recall feature, if it can be placed in some areas instead of the cloud, and charged for, would be better. Recall the storage where you watch all the traffic, and you can recall it and try to analyze it in the back end. It’s cloud-based. If they offer it on-prem, it would be better. I think they have a solution, but I have never tested it, to be honest with you.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For those who want a next-gen firewall that's easy to configure and easy to operate, I think you should go for Palo Alto."

"One of the most valuable features is the anti-malware protection."

"It's very easy to use and configure. What is nice about Palo Alto is that even if you don't understand how to use it, you can just click on upload and upload everything that needs to be blocked."

"Edge protection is a valuable feature."

"It is a stable product."

"With the IP address flag, I was able to see that I was being hacked. The moment there was an interaction between somebody on my network and that IP, the solution was able to flag it, and we were able to protect ourselves."

"It's a monster, it's got so many beautiful features. We do deal with other firewalls and we've got a better idea of what other firewalls' capabilities are, any comparison with the Palo Alto I liked the quality of service on the applications that you can control the amount of bandwidth an application is allowed to consume. The best feature is the quality of the application quality of service."

"The stability of Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention is good."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention pros

"One of the most valuable features is all the correlation that it does using AI and machine learning. An example would be alerting on a host and then alerting on other things, like abnormal behavior, that it has noticed coming from the same host. It's valuable because we're a very lean team."

"One of the key advantages for us is we define a 24/7 service around it. We use far more of Vectra alerts than we do with our SIEM product because we understand that when we get an alert from Vectra we actually need to do something about it."

"The core product provides excellent visibility, but my favorite feature is Vectra Recall."

"Vectra AI is the best. It is a major product in our cybersecurity."

"The fact that we get the visualization of what's happening on our network, which is a way of improving our security in-depth is most valuable."

"The key feature for me for Detect for Office 365 is that it can also concentrate all the information and detection at one point, the same as the network solution does. This is the key feature for me because, while accessing data from Office 365 is possible using Microsoft interfaces, they are not really user-friendly and are quite confusing to use. But Detect for Office 365 is aggregating all the info, and it's only the interesting stuff."

"One of the core features is that Vectra AI triages threats and correlates them with compromised host devices. From a visibility perspective, we can better track the threat across the network. Instead of us potentially finding one device that has been impacted without Vectra AI, it will give us the visibility of everywhere that threat went. Therefore, visibility has increased for us."

"It is doing some artificial intelligence. If it sees a server doing a lot of things, then it will assume that is normal. So, it is looking for anomalous behavior, things that are out of context which helps us reduce time. Therefore, we don't have to look in all the logs. We just wait for Vectra to say, "This one is behaving strange," then we can investigate that part."

More Vectra AI pros

Cons

"Mission learning techniques should continue to expand and detect unknown threats on the fly."

"I think they can use some improvement on FID."

"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve the commercial offing. Other solutions, such as Fortinet provide better commercial features."

"The organization mail security solutions could be improved. There is no mail security solution available."

"The application’s pricing and dashboard need improvement. It could be user-friendly."

"The documentation needs to be improved. I need better information about how to configure it and what the best practices are."

"Right now we are focusing on email. If Palo Alto can increase the features related to email filtering and the new malware, it would help us protect our systems."

"It's not so easy to set up a test environment, because it's not so easy to get the test license. The vendor only gives you 90 days for a test license; it's a tough license to get."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention cons

"In education as a sector, we are looking at AI a lot in terms of how it can be used as part of the teaching and learning side of things. It would be great to have Vectra AI look at a better way to enhance the security posture related to the AI tools in our portfolio."

"Vectra is still limited to packet management. It's only monitoring packet exchanges. While it can see a lot of things, it can't see everything, depending on where it's deployed. It has its limits and that's why I still have my SIEM."

"One area where there's room for improvement is the absence of a comprehensive TCP recording and replay feature."

"Neither Vectra nor Darktrace have a function like a status health check on my log sources and traffic sources."

"Some of the customization could be improved. Everything is provided for you as an easy solution to use, but working with it and doing specific development could be worked on a bit more in the scope of an incident response team."

"I would like to see data processed onshore. Right now, the cloud components, like Office 365, must be processed on servers outside of Australia. I would like to see a future adoption of onshore processing."

"We are using SMB 3.0, which is an encrypted protocol. When we get some alerts or something, we cannot go deep into the protocol to see what's wrong because it's encrypted. We need to decrypt the protocol in another way, which is quite difficult. We might go back to SMB 2.0 just for this reason, but that's not a good solution."

"The false positives and the tuning side of it is something that could use improvement. But that could be from our side."

More Vectra AI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you want to have all of the good features then you have to pay extra for licensing."

"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve by having consistent pricing at system levels."

"The pricing could be lower."

"Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is quite competitive, offering extensive threat detection and prevention capabilities, though it is priced higher than some alternatives."

"The pricing has improved with the newer generation of their Firewalls, but the price could always be lower."

"The pricing and the licensing are pretty competitive at this stage. As a reseller, I would like to see the price come down a little bit so I can compete better against other firewalls because we do that all the time."

"From one to ten, with one being the most expensive, I would rate the pricing of Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention a one out of ten. It is my understanding that Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention is the most expensive one."

"The price of the solution is higher than others on the market. A price reduction would be beneficial if it does not impact their database quality."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention pricing and cost advice

"It's relatively on the pricier side, but when compared to other solutions. It's not the most budget-friendly option, but it can be considered somewhat more cost-effective in comparison to other alternatives."

"There are additional features that can be purchased in addition to the standard licensing fee, such as Cognito Recall and Stream."

"The licensing is on an annual basis."

"The solution's pricing was 50 percent lower than the other vendors shortlisted."

"The solution is low-cost and affordable."

"The pricing and licensing are quite straightforward because they're based on the IP licenses. As a result, they are easy to count."

"Vectra AI's pricing is cheaper than that of Darktrace."

"Cost is a big factor, as always. However, I think we have a very good price–performance ratio."

More Vectra AI pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would prefer Arbor.

What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?

It is a stable product.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?

The pricing is competitive, and with current campaigns and discounts, it provides an excellent device for a reasonable price.

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?

The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the eventual forwarding of events and parsed data logs to a security team’s SIEM or ...

What do you like most about Vectra AI?

The solution is currently used as a central threat detection and response system.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vectra AI?

It is very acceptable when you compare it with Darktrace, for example.

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Arista NDR vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

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More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention Competitors

Darktrace vs Vectra AI

Compared 32% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Vectra AI

Compared 11% of the time

Corelight vs Vectra AI

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Vectra AI

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Vectra AI

Compared 1% of the time

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Product Reports

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

March 2025

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention report

Download Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention product report

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March 2025

Also Known As

No data available

Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR

Overview

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is a cloud-based security service that combines cutting-edge technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and expert human monitoring, to effectively thwart advanced threats like malware, zero-day attacks, and command-and-control threats. It offers inline protection, scrutinizing all network traffic irrespective of port, protocol, or encryption. An integral component of Palo Alto Networks' security platform, it enjoys widespread adoption across diverse organizations. With its robust security capabilities, it's an ideal choice for entities of all sizes, particularly those in high-risk sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government agencies, seeking to safeguard their networks from a broad spectrum of advanced threats.

Palo Alto Networks

Vectra AI is used for detecting network anomalies and potential malicious activities, providing visibility into network traffic and enhancing threat detection across environments.

Organizations deploy Vectra AI mainly on-premises with additional cloud components. It helps with compliance, incident response, security monitoring, detecting insider threats, and correlating network events. Vectra AI captures and enriches network metadata, provides detailed dashboards, reduces false positives, and supports cross-environment behavioral analysis to enhance threat detection and prioritization. While valued for its high accuracy and alert aggregation, it has room for improvement in UI/UX, packet management, and integration with SIEMs and other tools. It is noted for expensive pricing and limited proactive threat response features.

What are Vectra AI's most valuable features?

High accuracy in identifying threat locations
Aggregation of alerts into single incidents
24/7 threat detection
Visibility into the entire attack lifecycle
Risk score aggregation
Effective triaging of alerts
Integration with other tools

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced threat detection and prioritization
Comprehensive network visibility
Reduction in false positives
Better incident response capabilities
Improved compliance monitoring

In specific industries, Vectra AI is deployed to monitor complex networks and alleviate challenges in threat detection. It is particularly effective in sectors requiring stringent compliance and security measures, offering insights and capabilities crucial for protecting sensitive data and maintaining operational integrity.

Sample Customers

University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, SkiStar AB, TRI-AD, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia

Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association