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Cisco XDR vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

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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

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Cisco XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
28th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (25th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (12th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (47th), Threat Deception Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.6%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco XDR is 1.6%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 2.1%, down from 2.4% 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 Networks4.6%
Cisco XDR1.6%
Rapid7 InsightIDR2.1%
Other91.7%
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.
Fred Parks - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Consultant at W.C. Bradley Co.
Centralized visibility has transformed incident investigations and now cuts response time dramatically
Workflows could definitely be easier to work with. Workflows are automated tasks that can be kicked off inside of a playbook. When someone is responding to something, they can click a button and it will perform automated tasks for them inside of these other products. The product can actually control the behavior of a firewall and you can write a rule in a firewall from Cisco XDR without having to go into the firewall software. However, if it is not a native workflow automation, it is very difficult to create your own. It is not intuitive and you almost have to be a developer and get really good with the API. This could definitely be improved on, particularly the custom workflow automation. Another thing that could be improved is Cisco documenting how it makes decisions, because there are certain factors or criteria that it uses from the source products. Cisco XDR gets all of its data from the integrations, so if you do not integrate anything, it is not going to do anything. Sometimes in these integration products, such as Secure Network Analytics or Cisco Security Exposure, they could be generating some type of alert and you do not necessarily see that in Cisco XDR. This is because it knows, maybe because of these other products, it is not really a big deal and is not big enough to raise an incident. However, I do not think Cisco does a great job in explaining what those rules are, such as why this happens and how this happens. This can cause some questions and some concern. I think it is doing the right thing, but I think it would be better if they had a rule set to say, based on this data, this is how the product actually works.
SohailHyder - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Cyber Security at Super Secure
Has supported compliance needs for mid-sized organizations but lacks customization and advanced integration
If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as a SIEM solution is. This is where it can improve if we keep in front the feature sets of a complete SIEM solution. Most common in the market is QRadar, but it is depleting now. It has been taken over by some other products such as Splunk and LogRhythm. If we compare these things with Rapid7 InsightIDR, then there are definitely some gaps that need to be filled. Data retention is also one concern because Rapid7 InsightIDR is cloud-based and operates on a subscription model. Whatever data you want to retain, it has to be paid for separately or it has a cost. Other solutions that are on-premises can have their own infrastructure or they provide some data retention for a month or in some capacity-wise, they provide that solution to them which makes them more attractive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One thing that I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, it is detecting all the suspicious or malicious binaries, and it has integration with Palo Alto Firewall."
"I recognize that Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is one of the best products in its category regarding capabilities."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks's ability to block sophisticated threats in real time is quite good and is on par with SentinelOne's."
"We can visualize and control the activities in the environment from anywhere."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"Cortex covers everything I need. It's a perfect solution. Cortex provides a different level of visibility because it's an extended EDR, allowing you to grab logs from the network and firewalls. Palo Alto invented the concept of the extended EDR or XDR."
"I don't have to do much monitoring with it; I don't have to have anybody manually looking at this, it gives us reports, and it lets us know if something needs to be addressed, and we can easily address it."
"The behavior-based detection feature is valuable."
"Overall, the platform has strengthened our cybersecurity posture and increased operational efficiency for the security team."
"Before using Cisco XDR, I sometimes did not detect malicious activities in my client's environment, but since implementing this solution, my mean time to detect has reduced and my mean time to respond has fallen within the acceptable threshold, positively impacting my organization as I can detect and respond to threats in time."
"My advice for other organizations considering Cisco XDR is that it offers proactive security measures that are really very helpful."
"I have seen a measurable ROI after implementing Cisco XDR, as my SOC team reduced manual investigation and triage effort by nearly 40 to 50%, which significantly improved analyst productivity and reduced response time for critical incidents."
"I appreciate the granularity of what I get from Cisco XDR the most."
"Since implementing Cisco XDR, our organization has improved its incident response process and overall SOC visibility."
"Cisco XDR has positively impacted our organization by providing faster detection of complex threats, reducing alert fatigue, and giving us better visibility."
"Cisco XDR is one of the most matured systems available."
"InsightIDR helps us investigate an environment to discover information about incidents."
"I rate Rapid7 nine out of 10 for affordability"
"The solution is very intuitive, it's easy to set up, is absolutely stable, and has a lot of integration with other security products."
"InsightIDR’s ability to process millions of transactions per day, and to notify me of the most critical ones, is priceless. InsightIDR has the alerts tuned, and has the ability to quickly drill down to determine the threat level."
"I am able to run automated actions based on the output of reports, leaving me extra time to focus on more pressing matters."
"Previously, when something happened, such as when a hacker was attacking one of our customers, we were always behind, or we did not know that we were hacked until the ransomware started, but with the Rapid7 solution, at every step, we could online see what a person was doing, and we could prevent ransomware."
"InsightIDR has allowed us to find potential security issues that we did not know existed, and get remediation quickly."
"The alerting to drive investigations and remediation has been its most valuable feature, plus the ability to quickly search multiple logs makes investigations easier."
 

Cons

"It takes time to scan the servers and devices."
"In general, the price could be more competitive."
"The onboarding process could be better."
"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around."
"It is not very strong in terms of endpoint management. It should have additional features like DLP, encryption, or advanced device control. Currently, Cortex is good in terms of the security of the endpoints, but it is not as good as other vendors in terms of the management of the endpoint."
"The configuration could be simplified. I would like to see better protection, specifically to protect email applications."
"There are some limitations on the Traps agents."
"They are charging for Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) services, so 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."
"Customer support for Cisco XDR is a bit slow in the initial stages, but I believe it has improved nowadays."
"Cisco XDR can be improved in terms of out-of-the-box integrations and standard operating procedures available on the platform where we would not have to refer to documents outside of the platform to integrate."
"Regarding the pricing aspect of Cisco XDR, I think the price is a bit expensive."
"While Cisco XDR is robust, it could benefit from improvements on the AI side."
"One area where Cisco XDR could improve is the learning curve for new users, especially during initial setup and workflow customization."
"If we have a list of domains we need to block, such as 4,000 domains, I can only block 100 domains at a time because if I put in more than 100 domains, I hit that 2,000 character max and can't continue with an investigation. Being able to put in all 4,000 domains, without a character limit or observable limit, would make doing those case books a whole lot easier and blocking those domains a whole lot easier too."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"My only complaint about Cisco XDR is related to licensing, which is complicated."
"Customised alert recipients need to be added to allow better first-line action and quicker response. Configurable honeypots would be a welcome addition."
"I would like the ability to adjust the threshold of certain existing alerts. Currently the only option is to change the notifications or create my own alert."
"One thing that springs to mind is easier API integration with ITSMs."
"The solution needs improvement in threat intelligence. Increasing the depth of intelligence to help users understand more about threats is a possibility. My suggestion is to expand access to other websites or resources."
"Inability to get access to compliance reports within the solution."
"The product allows us to make only 30 custom rules."
"The interface for doing investigation needs to be enhanced with minor improvements that would make it more useful."
"I'd like to be able to get the compliance report within the solution which is currently not possible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is on a yearly-basis."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"Very costly product."
"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"Licensing is straightforward. If, for some reason, you don’t meet the minimum licensing requirements, there is a third-party managed service that can help."
"The pricing of the solution depends on the user. But there is a yearly licensing cost."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is a cheaply priced product. On a scale of one to ten, where one is very expensive, and ten is very cheap, I rate the product's price at seven or eight."
"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."
"The pricing and licensing are competitive."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable but we have challenges with the Minimum Order Quantity. It is not reasonable for customers who have less than one hundred devices. If they can reduce Minimum Order Quantity, it is good. You have to pay around 5000-6000 dollars per year for the product. The pricing includes maintenance and support costs."
"Licensing is by endpoint and amount of retention time (at least ours is). Default retention was one year, but we are able to push the retention further if needed. There's also a provide-your-own-S3 option for longer retention if you don't want to pay for the additional retention years in your Rapid7 agreement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise6
 

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,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
The centralized visibility, automation, and reduction in investigation time have provided good operational value for ...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
Cisco XDR could improve the UI customization experience. Some workflows still feel more complex than they need to be,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
We mainly use Cisco XDR for centralized threat detection and incident investigation, especially for correlating endpo...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is a...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightIDR?
If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as ...
What is your primary use case for Rapid7 InsightIDR?
I am working with Rapid7 InsightOps and Rapid7 InsightIDR because the requirement is as such from the customer side, ...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco XDR vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.