Binary Defense MDR vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks comparison

The compared Binary Defense and Palo Alto Networks solutions aren't in the same category. Binary Defense is ranked #8 in MDR , with an average rating of 9.4, and holds a 0.6% mindshare in the category. Palo Alto Networks is ranked #4 in EPP , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Binary Defense users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

Binary Defense MDR

Read 16 Binary Defense MDR reviews

5,910 Views
2,423 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...

Read 91 Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks reviews

17,842 Views
11,776 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Binary Defense MDR

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Binary Defense MDR and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Huntress, Field Effect and others in Managed Detection and Response (MDR).

To learn more, read our detailed Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 862,514 peers since 2012

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

Binary Defense MDR

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (8th)

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th)

Mindshare comparison

Binary Defense MDR and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Binary Defense MDR is designed for Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and holds a mindshare of 0.6%, up 0.5% compared to last year.
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, on the other hand, focuses on Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP), holds 3.7% mindshare, down 4.9% since last year.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)

Featured Reviews

Rich Ullom

AVP, IT Security Compliance and Audit/Information Security Officer at The Western Reserve Group

Worth the money, fantastic communication, and fast service with an average response time of about four minutes on an alert

This is my third SOC. I have never had anybody react as well. So, it's hard for me to provide something that they could do better because I'm really happy with them. I just signed another three-year contract with them. I don't find any downside to them, but if I have to put one, it would be consistent manpower or staffing. The only area where the solution can be improved is going to be with people. As they grow, they are struggling with the same thing that every other company is, which is getting talent and getting that talent to stay, but they've just revised their tiering system to go from a flat analyst and manager to a three-tier solution where it goes through two or three before it gets elevated. That seems to have worked out well, so if one level misses it, the next one picks it up, and it works out fine. Consistent staffing is the only challenge they have because when you're hiring level-one analysts, you go through them pretty quickly. You'll probably hire them at 50K or 55K, and after they do it for a year, they find out they can make 85K somewhere else, and they bounce. So, their turnover is a little high, but that's it.

Read full review

NiteshSharma

Pre-Sales Architect at network techlab

Automated threat response and behavioral control improve security measures

I recommend adding a data loss prevention (DLP ( /categories/data-loss-prevention-dlp )) solution to Cortex XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ) by Palo Alto Networks. The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of DLP ( /categories/data-loss-prevention-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. Additionally, multi-tenancy and multi-cloud features are not available and should be considered for inclusion.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Binary Defense has a human service department that provides live monitoring for our systems."

"Binary Defense is comprehensive. We see most of the questionable activity. Once you see things a couple of times and are familiar with the processes, you know what those are. The level of activity is definitely favorable."

"The speed at which their services are reactive is valuable. Nowadays, when a threat hits an endpoint, you've got minutes, not hours or days. Their average response time is about four minutes on an alert. For anything that needs to be sent to us, it's about fourteen minutes, which is pretty good. They're the third SOC that I've used in fifteen years. By far, they are the quickest ones to act. When you're looking at prevention, that's a key factor."

"The most valuable features are the SIEM and the ticketing function; the latter is very smooth and easy to read and understand. We don't have any issues looking at the ticketing information when we're trying to identify what's going on."

"The most valuable part of Binary Defense is its team of cybersecurity analysts. Their analysts filter out the noise and only forward the critical threats that require a response instead of false positives."

"The case interface is Binary Defense MDR's most valuable feature."

"The customization has been the most valuable aspect and was really the reason we ended up selecting Binary Defense. They worked with us to provide exactly the level of support, features, response, and collaboration we needed."

"With Binary Defense, we don't just get an alert, but also a detailed rundown of why they're alerting us on it. They tell us what was executed, or the username, script, or IP. That way, we're not wasting time investigating."

More Binary Defense MDR pros

"Based on my experience, I would recommend Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks to other people."

"Cortex XDR can integrate the firewalls and determine the tendencies of the attacks. It's a new generation antivirus, with protection endpoints and detection response. It is very easy to use and everybody can operate the solution."

"The initial setup isn't too bad."

"The most valuable for us is the correlation feature."

"The solution helps find bugs, and it is safe to use to prevent attacks by hackers."

"The most valuable feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is its machine-learning capabilities. Additionally, there is full integration with other solutions."

"Stability is one of the features we like the most."

"The stability of the solution is very good. We have about 100 users on it right now, and we use it twice a week."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pros

Cons

"It's sometimes difficult to know when to engage Binary Defense or TrustedSec, their sister company. TrustedSec is more focused on offensive security, as opposed to the defensive security that the MDR solution provides. It would be awesome if there were a better bridge between that relationship for when we need to get more proactive services or when we need to do a penetration test."

"The current reporting system could benefit from improvement."

"It's hard to think of anything that they need to improve on, but just to point out something, I would like to see them provide advanced XDR."

"Binary Defense MDR could be even better with additional features, like automatic scans and file quarantine."

"I would like to see more frequent check-ins with our security status."

"We should be able to isolate devices faster. They should shorten the time between clicking on a device to contain it and carrying out the action. That would be a welcome improvement."

"We found a couple of bugs in the user interface."

"I don't find any downside to them, but if I have to put one, it would be consistent manpower or staffing. The only area where the solution can be improved is going to be with people. As they grow, they are struggling with the same thing that every other company is, which is getting talent and getting that talent to stay, but they've just revised their tiering system to go from a flat analyst and manager to a three-tier solution where it goes through two or three before it gets elevated. That seems to have worked out well, so if one level misses it, the next one picks it up, and it works out fine."

More Binary Defense MDR cons

"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all."

"In general, the price could be more competitive."

"It tends to do 99.9% of things. The only thing I'd like is single sign-on authentication into their cloud platform so that my users can be properly authenticated against it."

"I recommend adding a data loss prevention (DLP) solution to Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks. 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."

"It would be better if they could educate the customers more. Some sort of seminars and roadshows will help educate the customers and show what the product can do. The price could be better. It would also help if they had a team for deployment and support."

"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by adding a sandbox feature to better compete with their competitors which have it."

"It's very time-consuming to log support issues and the people that answer the tickets aren't very knowledgeable."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From the initial cost that Binary Defense came in with, we pared it down quite a bit over the course of 30 or 60 days. My leadership would say that their cost was high, but realistically, they were in line with the market."

"It has been good. We have saved money, and we have a better product."

"The pricing isn't that bad, it's very competitive. I don't feel that it's over-priced and I don't feel that it's under-priced."

"The pricing is on target. Working with their sales team on pricing negotiations was a pleasant process. They were very respectful of the constraints we had and I feel that we're paying a fair price."

"The pricing is very good. They are definitely competitive and they were lower at the time that we went with them."

"Binary Defense MDR is priced competitively and may be slightly lower than CrowdStrike."

"The solution's price is spot on; if anything, it's slightly below the norm for most services. Compared to building the same team internally, it would cost more to create the same amount of capability than what we get from an external team. Price-wise, Binary Defense is in a great spot."

"Binary Defense has changed its pricing model from being primarily based on the volume of data to one based on escalations and incidents they handle."

More Binary Defense MDR pricing and cost advice

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."

"In terms of the cost Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very expensive because we are a Mexican company and when you translate dollars to pesos the cost is very high. The solution is very expensive for Mexican companies. I understand that they have international prices, but I do not think it offsets the price enough for many companies in countries, such as Mexico. The amount it is reduced is not a massive percentage."

"The price was fine."

"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."

"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."

"It's about $55 per license on a yearly basis."

"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."

"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

862,514 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Binary Defense MDR?

The most valuable feature is reviewing tickets and the notes added by technicians.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Binary Defense MDR?

It has been good. We have saved money, and we have a better product. We are a company that has become an enterprise from a small medium business in two years. Our company passed a certain dollar ma...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Binary Defense MDR?

We are going to have a meeting with them the following Monday. It will be our first quarterly business review. Half of it is going to be looking at new products and new functions that they are brin...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Binary Defense MDR

Compared 21% of the time

Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response vs Binary Defense MDR

Compared 19% of the time

VMware Carbon Black Endpoint vs Binary Defense MDR

Compared 12% of the time

Darktrace vs Binary Defense MDR

Compared 11% of the time

ReliaQuest GreyMatter vs Binary Defense MDR

Compared 11% of the time

More Binary Defense MDR Competitors

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 10% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 6% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Complete vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 5% of the time

Wazuh vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

Cortex XSIAM vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Binary Defense MDR

July 2025

Download Binary Defense MDR product report

Buyer's Guide

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks

July 2025

Download Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks product report

Also Known As

Binary Defense Vision, Binary Defense Managed Detection and Response, Binary Defense Managed Detection & Response

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps

Overview

Binary Defense provides a Managed Detection and Response service using an Open XDR strategy that detects and isolates threats early in the attack lifecycle. Expert security analysts in the Binary Defense Security Operations Center leverage an attacker’s mindset, monitoring your environments for security events 24x7x365 and acting as an extension of your security teams. When a security event occurs, Binary Defense analysts triage, disposition, and prioritize the event. Analysts conduct full kill chain analysis and supply tactical and strategic mitigation recommendations to your security team with the goal of increasing your organization’s security posture against the latest adversary threats.

Visit us online at https://www.binarydefense.com

Binary Defense

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks delivers comprehensive endpoint security, integrating well with other systems to offer robust threat detection and real-time protection through AI-driven analytics.

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks offers advanced endpoint protection and threat detection through AI and behavior-based analytics. Its user-friendly design simplifies integration with firewalls, delivering multi-layered protection with low resource consumption. Valued for policy management, USB control, and incident correlation, Cortex XDR enhances threat management and real-time threat hunting capabilities. However, users note challenges with third-party integration, reporting, and dashboard automation. Agent performance across operating systems and memory consumption are areas for improvement, alongside reducing false positives and simplifying endpoint management and setup.

What features does Cortex XDR offer?

Behavior-Based Detection: Analyzes user behavior to identify suspicious activities.
AI Analytics: Utilizes AI for accurate threat detection and response.
Real-Time Protection: Provides immediate defense against threats.
Policy Management: Allows customization of security policies across endpoints.
USB Control: Regulates USB device access for added security.
Incident Correlation: Connects and analyzes various security events for better response.
Firewall Integration: Seamlessly works with firewalls for enhanced security.
Machine Learning Capabilities: Continuously improves threat detection precision.

What benefits should be considered in reviews?

Low Resource Consumption: Efficient security functions without taxing system resources.
Multi-Layered Protection: Comprehensive security across multiple attack vectors.
User-Friendly Interface: Intuitive design for easier management.
Enhanced Threat Management: Identifies and mitigates threats effectively.
Real-Time Threat Hunting: Proactively searches for and mitigates potential threats.

Cortex XDR is crucial in industries requiring robust endpoint protection, such as finance, healthcare, and technology. It supports malware detection, behavioral analysis, and ransomware mitigation across endpoints, including remote work environments, providing comprehensive threat visibility and security policy management. The solution's integration with firewalls and specialized industry requirements enhances security posture in diverse operational settings.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Securitas USA, Black Hills Energy, Lincoln Electric,The J.M. Smuckers Company, New York Community Bank, State of Connecticut, NCR

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank

Buyer's Guide

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

June 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Huntress, Field Effect and others in Managed Detection and Response (MDR). Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

862,514 professionals have used our research since 2012.

We monitor all Managed Detection and Response (MDR) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.