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Binary Defense MDR vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Binary Defense MDR
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (13th)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Binary Defense MDR and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Binary Defense MDR is designed for Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and holds a mindshare of 0.8%, up 0.6% compared to last year.
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, on the other hand, focuses on Extended Detection and Response (XDR), holds 4.8% mindshare, down 5.8% since last year.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Binary Defense MDR0.8%
Huntress Managed EDR7.5%
CrowdStrike Falcon Complete MDR7.3%
Other84.4%
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.8%
CrowdStrike Falcon10.5%
Wazuh7.9%
Other76.8%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2588769 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Architect, Information Technology Division at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Phenomenal response time and good handling of context in our diverse environment
We are going to have a meeting with them the following Monday. It will be our first quarterly business review. Half of it is going to be looking at new products and new functions that they are bringing out. So far, I do not have anything negative or a concern. There were two small mistakes that the technician made, and they were remedied immediately. Once we brought them to their attention, they were remedied. I do not have any complaints. They were just simple mistakes that anybody could make, and their response was a positive response. So far, I have not had anything negative to say. The only area for improvement that I can think of relates to statistical analysis for SLAs. They are in the middle of moving to a new product called D3 which is going to do some backend work for them. I know they are working to improve some of the help desk statistics, such as the time the tickets open and the time they are closed. They are working on that function. It is going to be resolved in the next month or two. We have service level agreements with them, but they can use improved statistics for service level agreements. This is the only point of improvement I can identify.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest aspect for us is that they are able to conform to our environment and utilize our tools. That way, we still maintain ownership of all the data and access to the applications, and we never lose control of the ability to run the solution ourselves if we need to."
"Binary Defense's most valuable feature is the 24/7 monitoring and threat hunting. Their team checks the latest breaches and how they're done."
"The most valuable features are the SIEM and the ticketing function; the latter is very smooth and easy to read and understand. We don't have any issues looking at the ticketing information when we're trying to identify what's going on."
"Our mean time to response has gone down. We're much faster with direct response and have more investigative capabilities than we did before."
"The customization has been the most valuable aspect and was really the reason we ended up selecting Binary Defense. They worked with us to provide exactly the level of support, features, response, and collaboration we needed."
"The best part about Binary Defense MDR is that it runs on everything, and they keep an eye on things 24/7."
"Among the valuable features are the agent, continuous reporting, and dashboard. It has all the features we need and we haven't had to customize it, other than turning on certain features that we wanted."
"In the six months we have been with Binary Defense on this, they run with the ball. They take care of our problems. When we get a ticket, they do not just give us a report."
"They have a new GUI which is just fantastic."
"The initial setup is easy."
"WildFire AI is the best option for this product."
"Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance."
"We can use Cortex XDR to get the entire graph of the incidents from source to destination, and we can take remedial action."
"The tool is easy to use."
"The product has an intuitive dashboard."
"The most valuable feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is the low consumption of system resources. The solution uses a lot of AI and machine learning."
 

Cons

"The only area for improvement that I can think of relates to statistical analysis for SLAs. They are in the middle of moving to a new product called D3 which is going to do some backend work for them. I know they are working to improve some of the help desk statistics, such as the time the tickets open and the time they are closed."
"If I were shopping for an MDR solution today, I would not only look for a company that has the ability to alert, detect, and remediate, but also the ability to integrate vulnerability management. That's a big thing that they're lacking today."
"It's sometimes difficult to know when to engage Binary Defense or TrustedSec, their sister company. TrustedSec is more focused on offensive security, as opposed to the defensive security that the MDR solution provides. It would be awesome if there were a better bridge between that relationship for when we need to get more proactive services or when we need to do a penetration test."
"I would like to get more reports from Binary Defense about what they're blocking."
"I would like to see more frequent check-ins with our security status."
"The current reporting system could benefit from improvement."
"I don't find any downside to them, but if I have to put one, it would be consistent manpower or staffing. The only area where the solution can be improved is going to be with people. As they grow, they are struggling with the same thing that every other company is, which is getting talent and getting that talent to stay, but they've just revised their tiering system to go from a flat analyst and manager to a three-tier solution where it goes through two or three before it gets elevated. That seems to have worked out well, so if one level misses it, the next one picks it up, and it works out fine."
"The only area I see for improvement with Binary Defense is their service portal. It could benefit from some enhancements."
"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."
"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."
"It takes time to scan the servers and devices."
"While using Cortex, I noticed some aspects that could be improved, such as increasing the synchronization speed between XDR and Xnor."
"Cortex XDR could be improved with more GUI features."
"There is a severe gap in functionality between Windows, Linux, and Mac versions. For example all folder restriction settings are Windows only. Traps 5.0+ does not have SAML / LDAP integration."
"Limited remote connection."
"The encryption is not up to the mark."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very good. They are definitely competitive and they were lower at the time that we went with them."
"The pricing isn't that bad, it's very competitive. I don't feel that it's over-priced and I don't feel that it's under-priced."
"The solution's price is spot on; if anything, it's slightly below the norm for most services. Compared to building the same team internally, it would cost more to create the same amount of capability than what we get from an external team. Price-wise, Binary Defense is in a great spot."
"From the initial cost that Binary Defense came in with, we pared it down quite a bit over the course of 30 or 60 days. My leadership would say that their cost was high, but realistically, they were in line with the market."
"It has been good. We have saved money, and we have a better product."
"It's valued at the right price. Even with the number of endpoints we have, we don't feel that it's a lot more than any competitor. In fact, it might be less expensive when you look at the fact that you're getting a full flex SOC out of it along with the tools."
"Binary Defense MDR is priced competitively and may be slightly lower than CrowdStrike."
"Binary Defense has changed its pricing model from being primarily based on the volume of data to one based on escalations and incidents they handle."
"The cost of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is $55 to $90 USD per endpoint per month."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"It's the most expensive solution, but features-wise, it's quite strong. It's very good for protection, so the results are very good in the case of protection. I would rate it a two out of ten in terms of pricing."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
"The tool's price is moderate."
"It has a yearly renewal."
"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Binary Defense MDR?
The most valuable feature is reviewing tickets and the notes added by technicians.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Binary Defense MDR?
It has been good. We have saved money, and we have a better product. We are a company that has become an enterprise from a small medium business in two years. Our company passed a certain dollar ma...
What needs improvement with Binary Defense MDR?
We are going to have a meeting with them the following Monday. It will be our first quarterly business review. Half of it is going to be looking at new products and new functions that they are brin...
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...
 

Also Known As

Binary Defense Vision, Binary Defense Managed Detection and Response, Binary Defense Managed Detection & Response
Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Securitas USA, Black Hills Energy, Lincoln Electric,The J.M. Smuckers Company, New York Community Bank, State of Connecticut, NCR
CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Huntress, CrowdStrike, Field Effect and others in Managed Detection and Response (MDR). Updated: December 2025.
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