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Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Intercept X Endpoint comparison

 

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:
 

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
7.7
Cortex XDR enhances threat prevention, compliance, and cost efficiency, providing rapid ROI and improved security and user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.5
Intercept X Endpoint is praised for its cost-effectiveness, ransomware protection, strategic impact, and overall network security satisfaction.
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
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.
 

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
6.6
Palo Alto Networks' customer service receives mixed reviews due to language barriers, response times, and inconsistent technical support quality.
Sentiment score
6.5
Intercept X Endpoint support is mixed; many praise responsiveness, though some experience delays, especially in sanctioned regions.
Cisco has good technical support, especially considering these are newer solutions compared to traditional routing and switching products.
Every vendor has similar support; it depends on how the case is handled and raised.
Their support is efficient and responsive whenever I raise a ticket through my portal.
I would rate technical support from Palo Alto on a scale from one to ten as an eight, as I find it good.
Technical support from Sophos is rated as nine out of ten, which represents high quality.
There are issues with onboarding technical engineers to resolve problems, which causes delays.
 

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
7.6
Cortex XDR excels in scalability and adaptability across environments, supporting diverse systems with seamless deployment and reliable expansion.
Sentiment score
7.6
Intercept X Endpoint is praised for its scalability, ease of deployment, and adaptability for businesses of all sizes.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is definitely scalable.
The tool's scalability is good, and I would rate it an eight out of ten.
 

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
8.0
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is stable and reliable, with quick bug fixes and consistent performance across platforms.
Sentiment score
8.0
Intercept X Endpoint is stable and reliable, though some report occasional issues with updates and high resource usage.
We have not encountered any problems.
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
For the last 11 months, we haven't faced any outage issues, so it is a stable product.
In terms of stability, I would rate Intercept X Endpoint an eight out of ten.
To improve Intercept X Endpoint performance, upgrades in RAM and other system features are needed.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint requires better integration, reporting, and UI enhancements, alongside improved pricing, AI capabilities, and IoT support.
Users find Cortex XDR challenging due to integration issues, high memory usage, limited features, and a need for improvements.
Intercept X Endpoint needs enhancements in user management, integration, performance, customization, and support, while addressing high resource consumption.
The forensic capabilities need enhancement, especially for deep forensic data collection.
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.
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.
Cortex XDR could improve its sales support team, including better commission structures and referral programs.
There should be a profile where I can see what files Sophos is scanning.
Intercept X Endpoint sometimes slows down machines due to high CPU utilization and significant RAM consumption during scanning.
There is a licensing issue with Intercept X Endpoint; these licenses are user-based, and most of our customers require per-device licenses because they use one PC for multiple accounts, which presents a problem.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers competitive and flexible pricing with value-rich features, despite some complexity in licensing.
Cortex XDR offers flexible licensing, valued for complex security needs, but perceived as costly and variable in international markets.
Intercept X Endpoint pricing varies by deployment, offering annual plans with discounts and flexible payments, valued for robust features.
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
Compared to competitors such as CrowdStrike and Sophos, the pricing of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is similar to CrowdStrike but more expensive than Sophos.
The pricing of Intercept X Endpoint is a bit high.
I would describe it as economical, but not much cheaper than other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides advanced security features, cross-platform support, and ease of use with strong threat intelligence and support.
Cortex XDR ensures comprehensive protection with AI-driven analytics, multi-layered threat detection, and seamless integration, enhancing security management.
Sophos Intercept X Endpoint provides AI-driven security, centralized management, easy setup, and cost-effective protection with advanced threat detection.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet.
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
If a user doesn't click any link within 30 days and on the 31st day clicks a new link, Cortex XDR immediately alerts us that this user has clicked on an uncommon link or their behavior is uncommon.
The stronger the AI/ML in an endpoint, the better the protection against unknown threats.
Intercept X Endpoint is the only endpoint security product I know that provides content filtering and application controls.
Intercept X Endpoint has been stable, and I appreciate the centralized management and the reporting feature.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Intercept X Endpoint is 1.5%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Mark Broughton - PeerSpot reviewer
Tighter integration with Umbrella and Firepower gave us eye-opening information
We were using a third-party help desk. One of the ways that they were fixing problems was to delete the client and then add the client back if there was an issue where the client had stopped communicating. Any improvement in the client communicating back to the server would be good, particularly for machines that are offline for a couple of weeks. A lot of our guys were working on a rotation where the machine might be offline for that long. They were also terrible about rebooting their machines, so those network connections didn't necessarily get refreshed. So, anything that could improve that communication would be good. Also, an easier way to do deduplication of machines, or be alerted to the fact that there's more than one instance of a machine, would be useful. If you could say, "Okay, we've got these two machines. This one says it's not reporting and this one says it's been reporting. Obviously, somebody did a reinstall," it would help. That way you could get a more accurate device count, so you're not having an inflated number. Not that Cisco was going to come down on you and say, "Oh, you're using too many licenses," right away. But to have a much more accurate license usage count by being able to better dedupe the records would be good. I also sent over a couple of other ideas to our technical rep. A lot of that had to do with the reporting options. It would be really nice to be able to do a lot more in the reporting. You can't really drill down into the reports that are there. The reporting and the need for the documentation to be updated and current would be my two biggest areas of complaint. Also, there was one section when I was playing with the automation where it was asking for the endpoint type rather than the machine name. If I could have just put in the machine name, that would have been great. So there are some opportunities, when it comes to searching, to have more options. If I wanted to search, for example, by a Mac address because, for some reason, I thought there was a duplication and I didn't have the machine name, how could I pull it up with the Mac address? When you're getting to that level, you're really starting to get into the ticky tacky. I would definitely put the reporting and documentation way ahead of that.
NiteshSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Automated threat response and behavioral control improve security measures
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. Additionally, multi-tenancy and multi-cloud features are not available and should be considered for inclusion.
Suwandhi Suraweera - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers advanced filtering features and benefits from improved licensing and performance
There is a licensing issue with Intercept X Endpoint. Their licenses are user-based. Most of our customers use per device licenses, and they need per device licenses because they use one PC for multiple accounts. This creates a problem. There was one customer who complained about the slowness of PCs using Intercept X Endpoint. They use minor performance PCs, which causes their PCs to become slow.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 CrowdS...
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...
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,...
How does Crodwstrike Falcon compare with Sophos Intercept X?
I like that Crowdstrike Falcon allows me to easily correlate data between my firewalls. Its detection and machine lea...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Intercept X?
I would describe it as economical, but not much cheaper than other solutions.
 

Also Known As

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

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
Flexible Systems
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