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CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

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 Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
39th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (33rd), Vulnerability Management (51st), Application Control (10th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (10th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (14th)
WatchGuard Firebox
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (10th), Firewalls (12th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (7th), Application Control (4th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.6%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard Firebox is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.6%
WatchGuard Firebox1.3%
CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber0.8%
Other94.3%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

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.
Gary Herbstman - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Byte Solutions Inc.
Experienced reduced alert fatigue with streamlined notifications
We use Blackpoint Cyber MDR for our higher-end clients who need a higher level of control over security We get a deeper look into security related events that are otherwise difficult find and analyze. Security operations does a good job of weeding out the noise. I appreciate that there are…
Abhishek Saini - PeerSpot reviewer
Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT
Centralized security management has improved VPN reliability and simplified daily operations
WatchGuard Firebox is a strong and reliable platform overall, but there are a few areas where improvements could make the experience even better. One area is the user interface and navigation in some management tools. While the platform is powerful, certain configurations and troubleshooting workflows can feel less intuitive compared to some newer cloud-native firewall platforms. Another point is reporting and log analysis. Although the logging features are very useful, deeper analytics and more customizable reporting dashboards would make security monitoring much more effective. Firmware upgrades and policy synchronization can sometimes require careful planning to avoid security interruptions. Overall, the core security and VPN functionality are very solid, but improving usability, reporting, and automation would make the platform even stronger. One area that could be improved is the learning curve for new administrators. While experienced engineers can work with the platform effectively, some advanced networking and security configurations can be a bit complex for junior technicians. More guided configuration workflows, smarter recommendations, and simplified troubleshooting tools would make onboarding easier. Another improvement would be more flexible reporting customization for executive-level and client-facing reports.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, it's a great platform; it integrates very well with other solutions from Palo Alto and also with our vendors, the ease of use is excellent, I love the root cause analysis from Cortex, which is amazing, and in a few clicks you can have the full root cause."
"The most valuable feature is that you can select remote access of any machine for sandboxing."
"It'll not slow down your system when compared to others."
"I recommend this solution to others because it is easy to manage, reliable, and overall good to use."
"Cortex XDR is a very capable solution for protecting large networks and a lot of endpoints. It's very useful because the automation is very high, and if you combine it with the features on Palo Alto firewalls, it provides very strong protection."
"From the Palo Alto side, whatever they buy, they integrate that really well into their integration suite, and that makes a massive difference."
"Cortex XDR alerts us on the dashboard when there's a threat, which allows us to restrict that user and helps secure our infrastructure."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"I appreciate that there are people behind the scenes sorting out valuable alerts from those that are not, so I only get alerts when they are real."
"The solution also watches over Microsoft 365 and keeps a copy of logs."
"On a scale from one to ten, I would rate the overall solution as a ten."
"On my end, the most valuable feature of this solution is that I can install it and forget about it. After that, their SOC team takes over and they only call me when there's a problem."
"The solution is all encompassing and can incorporate email monitoring."
"Their SOC is phenomenal in not monitoring and responding and taking action."
"I like intrusion detection the most."
"There are no problems with the technical support. If a problem occurs it gets resolved immediately with our technical support partners."
"WatchGuard Firebox has made a positive impact for my organization by improving security, saving time, and making my work as IT manager easier."
"On a scale of one to 10, I would rate the technical support of the WatchGuard Firebox a 10."
"The way it saves me time is that there is no maintenance; once we set it up, there's nothing else for us to do on a regular basis."
"Overall, we are quite happy with the Firebox solution and we have not seen any issues so far."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"Initial setup is straightforward; they make the integrations simple and easy to understand, and it is fast, only a day or two."
 

Cons

"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"It is a complex solution to implement."
"The downsides of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks are that in many incidents, when I enter the causality chain, there are numerous logs."
"The configuration could be simplified. I would like to see better protection, specifically to protect email applications."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is not only pricey; it is extremely expensive."
"The GUI could be improved. It's a little bit cumbersome. It could be more user-friendly."
"Additionally, I think the price is very high, and if it can be adjusted, I believe it will be a very good solution."
"Managing the product should be easier."
"The feature we keep asking for is a vulnerability scan."
"While I am very satisfied with the service, supporting additional platforms, particularly Linux support, would be a beneficial improvement."
"The solution does not tie into other EDR products like CyberArk or CrowdStrike but that might be more useful."
"The interface could be more intuitive. More transparency is needed in the interface as a lot of details are hidden behind the scenes, making them difficult or impossible to access."
"The interface could be more intuitive."
"Some texts seem to report items as normal too quickly."
"The drawbacks are just sometimes not having the technical information that we need in order to easily make connections with all of our Internet-based clients, but we can put the work in and still get it done."
"Multi properties could be added to the solution in the future to make it better."
"I'd like a few extra features, especially around threat severity assessment."
"They need to stop the VLAN limitation. They have a VLAN limitation on the size of their boxes. It is the worst thing ever. They basically sell their boxes by the size and the number of VLANs it can handle, which is a real issue. You spend a couple of thousand dollars for a firewall, and you can only do 30 VLANs, which is extremely silly, as a matter of fact. It would be really great to have something for easier mass rule changes. It also needs a drag-and-drop function so that you don't have to constantly duplicate firewall rules. It would be nice to have such a feature because you got one WatchGuard, and you want to mirror its config and change a couple of things in another one and move some things around. It is not as easy as you would necessarily think. It is kind of expensive, and its pricing can be a little better for sure."
"WatchGuard is not the best. We already knew that, but it comes with most of the features we need."
"The VPN aspect of the WatchGuard Firebox is an area that could potentially benefit from improvement. We encountered difficulties while attempting to integrate Windows 11 laptops into the system, which resulted in unreliable connections. After some research, we discovered that this was primarily due to compatibility issues with Windows 11 and required a patch. However, it was still a challenge as it seemed that even when we tried to keep the laptops on Windows 10, they still exhibited the same issues as Windows 11 machines. Despite WatchGuard attributing the problem to Microsoft, we were eventually able to find a solution and all the machines are now functioning seamlessly."
"The solution needs to improve its accessibility."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."
"Traps pays for itself within the first 16 months of a three-year subscription. This is attributed to OPEX savings, as security teams spent less time trying to identify and isolate malware for analysis as a result of a reduction in malware incidents, false positives, and breach avoidance."
"The cost depends on your chosen license type, like Pro or other licenses."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"The solution has one subscription for endpoint protection and one subscription for detection and response. The two licenses combined give you the BRO version."
"Licensing for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR can be costly, especially when it comes to a hundred users. A license is required for each user, and the subscription must be renewed on a yearly basis."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"The price was fine."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is in line with other products."
"The pricing was in line with everyone else; maybe slightly higher."
"It's an affordable tool"
"The pricing of WatchGuard is probably a little higher than the SonicWall, but it makes up for it in dependability. It's worth it to me, especially since it's not much higher. For just a little bit higher price you get the dependability of the firewall with the WatchGuard brand."
"The price is very good."
"Firebox is priced reasonably."
"Despite the fact that there is always room for improvement, the current pricing of the solution is still lower compared to its competitors."
"It costs me about $800 a year."
"WatchGuard Firebox has good quality, but it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise55
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business104
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise17
 

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 needs improvement with Blackpoint Cyber MDR?
While I am very satisfied with the service, supporting additional platforms, particularly Linux support, would be a b...
What is your primary use case for Blackpoint Cyber MDR?
The solution serves as a baseline security offering. We have implemented it for every client that we do business with.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Blackpoint Cyber Managed Detection + Response, Blackpoint Cyber Managed Detection and Response
WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
CoreRecon, Peerless Tech Solutions, Lorien Health
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about CompassOne by Blackpoint Cyber vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.