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Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

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
7.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint enhances productivity and reduces costs by streamlining threat detection, integrating tools, and minimizing manual intervention.
Sentiment score
5.8
Cortex XDR offers cost-effective security with reduced infections, compliance support, enhanced efficiency, rich data, and competitive pricing.
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks helps to reduce my total cost of ownership significantly.
Detection and Response Consultant at Inovasys
I have seen a return on investment with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, as this product is offered at a minimal cost, and we can find a good ROI from it.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Cisco Secure Endpoint support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, providing quick issue resolution and valuable user guidance.
Sentiment score
6.8
Cortex XDR support quality varies; users experience both commendable assistance and challenges, depending on region and support plans.
Cisco has good technical support, especially considering these are newer solutions compared to traditional routing and switching products.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
The technical support from Palo Alto deserves a mark of ten because they reach out within an hour whenever assistance is needed.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
There is no back and forth, and they know what we are asking for and come up with the best resolution for a solution.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
If any of these services are missed, it becomes a problem in terms of support tickets, follow-up, or special configuration that needs to be done in the system.
Chief of IT Architecture at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint is scalable, integrates with SecureX for efficient management, and supports diverse industries without extra resources.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cortex XDR is scalable and cloud-based, efficiently supporting thousands of endpoints across various enterprise environments without scalability issues.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is definitely scalable.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be expanded anytime by purchasing another license without any issues related to scalability.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco Secure Endpoint is highly stable, reliable, and trusted for performance, earning high ratings from users in various enterprises.
Sentiment score
8.1
Cortex XDR is stable and reliable, with minimal performance issues and consistent performance despite initial configuration challenges.
We have not encountered any problems.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
Cortex remains fast and responsive, even with increasing data and alerts.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The thresholds we've seen on our firewall boxes at some instances reached 80% to 85%, but even at that level of utilization, we don't observe any latency or any issues reported with respect to accessing the application.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint requires better integration, reporting, and UI enhancements, alongside improved pricing, AI capabilities, and IoT support.
Cortex XDR needs better compatibility, UX, report customization, and pricing while reducing performance issues and enhancing automation and detection.
The forensic capabilities need enhancement, especially for deep forensic data collection.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
Improving reporting and dashboard customization, along with the addition of real-time and exportable reports, would help SOC teams greatly.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
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.
Pre-Sales Architect at network techlab
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.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers competitive and flexible pricing with value-rich features, despite some complexity in licensing.
Cortex XDR offers flexible licensing, ranging $55-$90 annually, deemed cost-effective despite higher setup costs, suitable for any enterprise.
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
The pricing on SentinelOne is far more reasonable and cheaper than Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks.
Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would say it is definitely not a cheap product, considering how mature it is and how scalable all Palo Alto products are together.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides advanced security features, cross-platform support, and ease of use with strong threat intelligence and support.
Cortex XDR offers advanced threat detection, AI capabilities, easy integration, remote management, and rapid response, enhancing security measures.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
Pre-Sales Architect at network techlab
It includes machine learning to easily analyze data and detect complex threats across endpoints, networks, or clouds.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
34th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (8th)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
5th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.3%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.3%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.3%
Cisco Secure Endpoint1.3%
Other95.4%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

JavedHashmi - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
Reliable threat protection is achieved while integration and analysis capabilities need refinement
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet. We haven't encountered a single breach after it's deployed. It controls USB devices and has a separate antivirus solution called Tetra, providing security even for real-time, day-zero attacks through its strong Talos threat intelligence platform.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Endpoint?
The product's initial setup phase was very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco Secure Endpoint lacks features like DLP which other vendors offer. XDR is new, so integration capabilities with third-party tools need improvement. The forensic capabilities need enhancement,...
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...
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank
CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Endpoint vs. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,443 professionals have used our research since 2012.