Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs Vectra AI comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Vectra AI and Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention are leaders in cybersecurity solutions. Palo Alto Networks seems to have an advantage with its comprehensive integration capabilities and user appreciation for its protective features.

Features: Vectra AI uses AI and machine learning to reduce alerts and correlate threats with hosts, providing deep security insights with network metadata capture. It assists in risk score aggregation, helping SOC analysts prioritize threats. Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention offers integration with other Palo Alto tools, enhancing malware detection, traffic inspection, and application behavior checking with signature-based prevention.

Room for Improvement: Vectra AI experiences integration challenges with third-party systems, such as SIEM, and requires better management of false positives and threat context. Palo Alto Networks can improve its IPS capabilities and simplify its complex licensing models, as well as expanding email protection features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Vectra AI offers flexible deployment across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, receiving praise for its responsive technical support, albeit with reliance on specific key personnel. Palo Alto Networks provides similar deployment options and is recognized for its robust customer service, characterized by quick responses and problem-solving.

Pricing and ROI: Vectra AI, while costly, provides value by reducing threat response times, offering ROI as efficient security operations. Its pricing can be prohibitive for some. Palo Alto is also expensive, but its extensive capabilities and scalability cater well to larger enterprises, with ROI seen in preempting attacks and optimizing security measures.

To learn more, read our detailed Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs. Vectra AI Report (Updated: March 2025).

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs. Vectra AI

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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

Palo Alto Networks Advanced...

Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Vectra AI

Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Detection and Response (NDR) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (15th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (10th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is 7.4%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vectra AI is 11.3%, up from 10.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

Featured Reviews

Carlos Bracamonte

Senior Network Support Engineer at Amadeus

Robust, reliable, simple to install and good technical support

We are attempting to improve the use of URL filtering beyond threat protection. I'm not sure what the remaining threat protection features are off the top of my head. But beyond that, we use URL filtering. We have three approved cases for using external dynamic lists that are stored in a bucket repository. Then, for each URL site that needs to be whitelisted, we add it to the external dynamic list in order to gain access to this email. I would like Wildfire to be implemented. We use the equivalent in Cisco is the integration policies. We have the Wildfire but we are not currently implementing it. We don't have the license to use it, but we are not currently implementing it until we present the use cases that the company gives some value to and they approve the use of it.

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Mohammad Alkurdi

Owner at Fortibits

Innovative detection features enhance monitoring

The advantages of the integration are not entirely out-of-the-box. You have to do it manually. When I'm doing tier response, an out-of-the-box solution is not available. You need to have a Linux server, and from the Linux server, you must perform AI tasks, and there is a lot to be handled in the back end. This is a major consideration about them. The recall feature, if it can be placed in some areas instead of the cloud, and charged for, would be better. Recall the storage where you watch all the traffic, and you can recall it and try to analyze it in the back end. It’s cloud-based. If they offer it on-prem, it would be better. I think they have a solution, but I have never tested it, to be honest with you.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The sandboxing tools offer great prevention for cloud feeds."

"The user interface is a bit more professional than some free products."

"We are currently using the URL filtering feature, which is the most popular."

"The stability of Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention is good."

"It's a monster, it's got so many beautiful features. We do deal with other firewalls and we've got a better idea of what other firewalls' capabilities are, any comparison with the Palo Alto I liked the quality of service on the applications that you can control the amount of bandwidth an application is allowed to consume. The best feature is the quality of the application quality of service."

"The most valuable features are the simplicity, transparency, and overall ease of management."

"It's very easy to use and configure. What is nice about Palo Alto is that even if you don't understand how to use it, you can just click on upload and upload everything that needs to be blocked."

"For those who want a next-gen firewall that's easy to configure and easy to operate, I think you should go for Palo Alto."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention pros

"The solution provide visibility into behaviors across the full lifecycle of an attack in our network, beyond just the Internet gateway. It makes our security operations much more effective because we are now looking not just at traffic on the border, but we're looking at east-west internal traffic. Now, not only will we see if an exploit kit is being downloaded, but we would be able to see then if that exploit kit was then laterally distributed into our environment."

"One of the key advantages for us is we define a 24/7 service around it. We use far more of Vectra alerts than we do with our SIEM product because we understand that when we get an alert from Vectra we actually need to do something about it."

"Vectra produces actionable data using automation. That has helped us. It's less manpower now to look at incidents, which has definitely increased efficiency. Right now, in a lot of cases, our mean time to detection is within zero days. This tells me by the time something happened, and we were able to detect it, it was within the same day."

"The solution's ability to reduce alerts, by rolling up numerous alerts to create a single incident or campaign, helps in that it collapses all the events to a particular host, or a particular detection to a set of hosts. So it doesn't generate too many alerts. By and large, whatever alerts it generates are actionable, and actionable within the day."

"Vectra AI generates relevant information."

"It is doing some artificial intelligence. If it sees a server doing a lot of things, then it will assume that is normal. So, it is looking for anomalous behavior, things that are out of context which helps us reduce time. Therefore, we don't have to look in all the logs. We just wait for Vectra to say, "This one is behaving strange," then we can investigate that part."

"It's easy to manage, and I love the UX. It's very well designed. When we are looking for something, it's quite easy to find it."

"What I like best about Vectra AI is that it alerts you about suspicious activities."

More Vectra AI pros

Cons

"There is a potential drawback with the lack of support for the ICAP protocol."

"The installation was complicated."

"The solution needs to improve its local technical support services. There is no premium support offered in our market."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the only thing I don't like is the support."

"The application’s pricing and dashboard need improvement. It could be user-friendly."

"The cost involves the price of the hardware, which is expensive. However, most of the Palo Alto solutions are expensive."

"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve the commercial offing. Other solutions, such as Fortinet provide better commercial features."

"Generally, to deploy it will take some downtime, about a day."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention cons

"The solution's marketing is not good."

"It does a little bit of packet capture on alert so you can look at the packet capture activity going on, but it doesn't collect a whole lot of data. Sometimes it's only one or two frames, sometimes it does collect more. That's why they have the addition of their Recall platform, because that really does help expand the capability."

"One of the things I am not so happy about when it comes to Vectra is the scoring board."

"ExtraHop has better features that seem more advantageous when compared to Vectra."

"Vectra Recall could be utilized much more, and I'm seeing some indications of that today with the investigative components. I use the Visualize feature to visualize components and dashboards a lot. I'm interested in new ways to build automated searches or having them leveraged already from Vectra."

"For S&D account scans, it would be easier if Vectra AI could triage with users. If a client uses a lot of accounts, then it could indicate that these accounts are benign, for example. That would help a lot."

"The advantages of the integration are not entirely out-of-the-box. You have to do it manually."

"The rules for threats are not always precise and Vectra AI should improve this."

More Vectra AI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing has improved with the newer generation of their Firewalls, but the price could always be lower."

"There is an initial, expensive investment but the return is good."

"From one to ten, with one being the most expensive, I would rate the pricing of Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention a one out of ten. It is my understanding that Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention is the most expensive one."

"The cost involves the price of the hardware, which is expensive. However, most of the Palo Alto solutions are expensive."

"The product’s pricing is expensive for small companies."

"The price of the solution is higher than others on the market. A price reduction would be beneficial if it does not impact their database quality."

"The pricing could be lower."

"If you want to have all of the good features then you have to pay extra for licensing."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention pricing and cost advice

"Vectra's pricing is too high. All schools will not be able to afford it. Vectra will only end up targeting higher education and higher value independence purely because of the price. A lot of schools would love to have a product like Vectra AI, but they simply can't because they struggle to even pay the high E5 licensing from Microsoft. When you're up against that, Vectra AI is never going to be within the sector's price range."

"The license is based on the concurrent IP addresses that it's investigating. We have 9,800 to 10,000 IP addresses."

"The solution's pricing was 50 percent lower than the other vendors shortlisted."

"Their licensing model is antiquated. I'm not a fan of their licensing model. We have to pay for licensing based on four different things. You have to pay based on the number of unique IPs, the number of logs that we send through Recall and Stream, and the size of our environment. They need to simplify their licensing down to just one thing. It should be based on the amount of data, the number of devices, or something else, but there should be just one thing for everything. That's what they need to base their licensing on. Cost-wise, they're not cheap. They were definitely the most expensive option, but you get what you pay for. They're not the cheapest option."

"Vectra's licensing model could scale to our research network, which has multiple, 100-gigabit links."

"Vectra AI's pricing is cheaper than that of Darktrace."

"It is an expensive solution, but it's not the most expensive we've seen. We also know how much we're going to pay, unlike with some other providers where all of a sudden our license explodes."

"The licensing is on an annual basis."

More Vectra AI pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would prefer Arbor.

What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?

It is a stable product.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?

The pricing is competitive, and with current campaigns and discounts, it provides an excellent device for a reasonable price.

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?

The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the eventual forwarding of events and parsed data logs to a security team’s SIEM or ...

What do you like most about Vectra AI?

The solution is currently used as a central threat detection and response system.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vectra AI?

It is very acceptable when you compare it with Darktrace, for example.

Fortinet FortiGate IPS vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

Comparisons

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Compared 12% of the time

Check Point IPS vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

Compared 12% of the time

Darktrace vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

Compared 10% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

Compared 4% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention Competitors

Darktrace vs Vectra AI

Compared 32% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Vectra AI

Compared 11% of the time

Corelight vs Vectra AI

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Vectra AI

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Vectra AI

Compared 1% of the time

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Product Reports

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

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Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention report

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Also Known As

No data available

Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR

Overview

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is a cloud-based security service that combines cutting-edge technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and expert human monitoring, to effectively thwart advanced threats like malware, zero-day attacks, and command-and-control threats. It offers inline protection, scrutinizing all network traffic irrespective of port, protocol, or encryption. An integral component of Palo Alto Networks' security platform, it enjoys widespread adoption across diverse organizations. With its robust security capabilities, it's an ideal choice for entities of all sizes, particularly those in high-risk sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government agencies, seeking to safeguard their networks from a broad spectrum of advanced threats.

Palo Alto Networks

Vectra AI is used for detecting network anomalies and potential malicious activities, providing visibility into network traffic and enhancing threat detection across environments.

Organizations deploy Vectra AI mainly on-premises with additional cloud components. It helps with compliance, incident response, security monitoring, detecting insider threats, and correlating network events. Vectra AI captures and enriches network metadata, provides detailed dashboards, reduces false positives, and supports cross-environment behavioral analysis to enhance threat detection and prioritization. While valued for its high accuracy and alert aggregation, it has room for improvement in UI/UX, packet management, and integration with SIEMs and other tools. It is noted for expensive pricing and limited proactive threat response features.

What are Vectra AI's most valuable features?

High accuracy in identifying threat locations
Aggregation of alerts into single incidents
24/7 threat detection
Visibility into the entire attack lifecycle
Risk score aggregation
Effective triaging of alerts
Integration with other tools

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced threat detection and prioritization
Comprehensive network visibility
Reduction in false positives
Better incident response capabilities
Improved compliance monitoring

In specific industries, Vectra AI is deployed to monitor complex networks and alleviate challenges in threat detection. It is particularly effective in sectors requiring stringent compliance and security measures, offering insights and capabilities crucial for protecting sensitive data and maintaining operational integrity.

Sample Customers

University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, SkiStar AB, TRI-AD, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia

Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs. Vectra AI