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Cisco XDR vs Elastic Security 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.0
Cisco XDR enhances ROI by reducing downtime, swiftly resolving incidents, and simplifying license expansion for small companies.
Sentiment score
6.0
Elastic Security provides satisfactory ROI and cost savings, though users experience varied support levels and payback periods.
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
It does not require hefty security budgets and can be deployed for enterprise security effectively.
Assistant Director at PTA
 

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
6.4
Elastic Security support is inconsistent; users favor community and documentation, while premium users seek more responsive and personalized help.
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
Support is prompt and helpful.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Most of the time when my team encounters issues, they receive responses within 24 hours.
Assistant Director at PTA
I have not faced any difficulties with Elastic Security, as we have a pretty good support service from them.
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
 

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
7.3
Elastic Security offers scalable solutions adaptable to various environments, praised for flexibility and requiring careful planning for integration.
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
It allows us to think about specific use cases, such as gathering malicious IPs in a single view and analyzing threats based on geolocation.
Assistant Director at PTA
Elastic Security is quite scalable.
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
 

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
7.7
Elastic Security is generally stable and reliable but can face challenges with big data and requires careful configuration.
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
In terms of stability, I would rate Elastic a solid eight out of ten.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco XDR users seek simplified licensing, better pricing, enhanced threat detection, and improvements in performance, features, and multilingual support.
Elastic Security needs improvements in authentication, usability, automation, scalability, integration, and pricing, with user-friendly dashboards and documentation.
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
CrowdStrike and Defender have more established threat intelligence integration due to having a larger client base.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently.
Assistant Director at PTA
Machine learning algorithms become better with time; as they ingest a huge volume of data, they become better.
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
 

Setup Cost

Cisco's subscription pricing is costly but customizable, with discounts on bundles, yet currency and licensing complexity affect costs.
Elastic Security provides a free open-source option, competitive pricing, and subscription plans, appealing to cost-conscious enterprises.
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 is reasonable, especially for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), making it a viable option for businesses building their security infrastructure.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
Assistant Director at PTA
Elastic Security is considered cost-effective, especially at lower EPS levels.
Performance Practice Specialist at a local government with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Cisco XDR enhances security with integrated threat intelligence, automation, and advanced features, improving response times and operational efficiency.
Elastic Security provides scalable, customizable threat response with fast search, real-time analysis, and strong community support for actionable insights.
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
Elastic Security offers good insight regarding alerts, reports, and cases.
Senior Cyber Security Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Elastic Security offers advanced features such as machine learning and integration with ChatGPT.
Performance Practice Specialist at a local government with 10,001+ employees
We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data.
Assistant Director at PTA
 

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
Elastic Security
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (9th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (14th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th)
 

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 Elastic Security is 3.8%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Security3.8%
Cisco XDR1.8%
Other94.4%
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.
Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise15
 

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.
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco XDR vs. Elastic Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.