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Cisco XDR vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.0
Cisco XDR enhances ROI by reducing downtime, swiftly resolving incidents, and simplifying license expansion for small companies.
Sentiment score
5.2
Cortex XDR provides value through threat blocking, compliance benefits, cost savings, and increased performance and user satisfaction.
Two customers faced a network breach and a bad configuration incident, but unlike in the past where recovery took days, they managed to shut down access points quickly.
Cloud Architect at Pure Storage
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco XDR is the downtime aspect, specifically not having to roll out to sites and not having customers experience downtime.
Core Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco XDR is that, being a small company where everybody has multiple roles, the quicker I can mitigate something, the faster I can return to my scheduled tasks for that day.
Network Engineer at BTC Broadband
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks helps to reduce my total cost of ownership significantly.
Detection and Response Consultant at Inovasys
I have seen a return on investment with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, as this product is offered at a minimal cost, and we can find a good ROI from it.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Cisco XDR's customer service is generally efficient with good teamwork, but some users report issues with responsiveness and communication.
Sentiment score
6.9
Cortex XDR support is praised for expertise and responsiveness but criticized for slow resolutions and inconsistent international support.
They responded quickly, they were always willing to meet, and they were always willing to work as per my schedule.
SOC Analyst at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
the tech support is excellent
Network Engineer at BTC Broadband
I would rate Cisco customer service a ten out of ten.
Core Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
The technical support from Palo Alto deserves a mark of ten because they reach out within an hour whenever assistance is needed.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
There is no back and forth, and they know what we are asking for and come up with the best resolution for a solution.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
If any of these services are missed, it becomes a problem in terms of support tickets, follow-up, or special configuration that needs to be done in the system.
Chief of IT Architecture at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.7
Cisco XDR is highly scalable, rated nine out of ten, supporting extensive operations and accommodating significant growth seamlessly.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cortex XDR offers exceptional scalability, supporting thousands of users with effortless deployment and enterprise-grade capabilities for large-scale environments.
Cisco XDR is designed to handle significant scaling of endpoints, allowing management of a large scale of environments with thousands of sessions.
Technical Presales at Vcom Technologies
In terms of scalability, I rate it as the best.
Cybersecurity Consultant | Managed Infrastructure Services Head | Business Apps and DevOps Head at Blueberry Tech Solutions India Pvt Ltd
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be expanded anytime by purchasing another license without any issues related to scalability.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
I think scalability for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is good.
Threat Analyst II at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco XDR is reliable and stable, with early issues resolved, praised for functionality, scalability, and dependable performance.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cortex XDR is stable with reliable performance and valued support, though minor bugs and alert issues occasionally occur.
Customers have mentioned that the stability and scalability are good compared to competitors.
Director -Digital Transformation at Convergence
Once they got it fixed and figured out the issue with the observables and with the character limit, it's been flawless.
SOC Analyst at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
The stability and reliability of Cisco XDR, similar to most Cisco products, are bulletproof.
Network Engineer at BTC Broadband
Cortex remains fast and responsive, even with increasing data and alerts.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The thresholds we've seen on our firewall boxes at some instances reached 80% to 85%, but even at that level of utilization, we don't observe any latency or any issues reported with respect to accessing the application.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco XDR users seek simplified licensing, better pricing, enhanced threat detection, and improvements in performance, features, and multilingual support.
Cortex XDR struggles with integration, complex interface, resource use, and pricing, needing improvements in management, automation, and detection.
Competitors offer more visibility without any additional licensing, which is a significant drawback for Cisco.
Director -Digital Transformation at Convergence
If it can capture threats from worldwide new threats and publish them into a particular database linked with an AI-driven system that can immediately alert people, that would be very good for zero-day threats.
Manager IT at NVCL Group
Offering some free XDR licenses for testing features, similar to VPN licenses, could have a significant impact on costs.
Network Security Specialist at General Authority of Customs
Improving reporting and dashboard customization, along with the addition of real-time and exportable reports, would help SOC teams greatly.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
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.
Pre-Sales Architect at network techlab
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.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
 

Setup Cost

Cisco's subscription pricing is costly but customizable, with discounts on bundles, yet currency and licensing complexity affect costs.
Cortex XDR offers flexible, cost-effective security for enterprises, despite high setup costs and additional charges for extra features.
This integration and discounting are something we cannot get from competitors, leading to reduced security costs.
Network Security Specialist at General Authority of Customs
Users can customize their use of Cisco XDR significantly from the onset, which has resulted in a lower total cost of ownership.
Cloud Architect at Pure Storage
Overall, the price is a bit expensive compared to local competitors.
Director -Digital Transformation at Convergence
The pricing on SentinelOne is far more reasonable and cheaper than Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks.
Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would say it is definitely not a cheap product, considering how mature it is and how scalable all Palo Alto products are together.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
 

Valuable Features

Cisco XDR enhances security with integrated threat intelligence, automation, and advanced features, improving response times and operational efficiency.
Cortex XDR delivers AI-driven endpoint security with seamless integration, efficient management, and enhanced detection and response capabilities.
Between the clarity, the granularity, and the dashboard, it just works.
Network Engineer at BTC Broadband
The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the flexibility for a user to be able to create their own reporting and dashboards.
Cloud Architect at Pure Storage
Cisco XDR helps prevent data loss during ransomware attacks by integrating with multiple levels of security, tying to identity management systems, and allowing placement of blocks at the endpoint level.
Cybersecurity Consultant | Managed Infrastructure Services Head | Business Apps and DevOps Head at Blueberry Tech Solutions India Pvt Ltd
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
Pre-Sales Architect at network techlab
It includes machine learning to easily analyze data and detect complex threats across endpoints, networks, or clouds.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (8th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cisco XDR is 1.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.8%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.8%
Cisco XDR1.8%
Other93.4%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Houghes - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at Pure Storage
flexible reporting and analytics boost data-driven security responses
The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the flexibility for a user to be able to create their own reporting and dashboards. I would say I got to stop beta testing myself. I am testing what can be customized the most with it. Being able to ingest all the analytics and make it something that's either meaningful to them or to their own leadership is a big plus. It's not just what the product is at launch; you have the ability to customize and make it useful to your business to actually get real, purposeful information out of just a swamp of data. The features of Cisco XDR have actually benefited the organization significantly by allowing us to do the outputs of specific data and even filtered subsets of the data. We can do the same reporting but only deliver in either reports or dashboards the information about the systems that a specific team is responsible for, or the larger teams that multiple departments or IT silos roll up into. We're basically able to just modify the filters and have the same reports in the same dashboards where it's all the same; 99% of the work is the same.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
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 Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been intriguing. I used to work for a Cisco partner, and I still have friends there with whom I discuss comparisons regarding some hardwar...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
Improvements in Cisco XDR revolve around performance. The less performance it utilizes to run at high configuration levels, the better it becomes, so all vendors need to continue working on keeping...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
As a security consultant, I use multiple SIEM and XDR solutions, so cumulatively, I can say I have used Cisco XDR for around one year.
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

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco XDR vs. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.