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Cisco XDR vs Elastic Security 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Elastic Security
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (8th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (16th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cisco XDR is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Security is 4.4%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Security4.4%
Cisco XDR2.0%
Other93.6%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Houghes - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at Pure Storage
flexible reporting and analytics boost data-driven security responses
The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the flexibility for a user to be able to create their own reporting and dashboards. I would say I got to stop beta testing myself. I am testing what can be customized the most with it. Being able to ingest all the analytics and make it something that's either meaningful to them or to their own leadership is a big plus. It's not just what the product is at launch; you have the ability to customize and make it useful to your business to actually get real, purposeful information out of just a swamp of data. The features of Cisco XDR have actually benefited the organization significantly by allowing us to do the outputs of specific data and even filtered subsets of the data. We can do the same reporting but only deliver in either reports or dashboards the information about the systems that a specific team is responsible for, or the larger teams that multiple departments or IT silos roll up into. We're basically able to just modify the filters and have the same reports in the same dashboards where it's all the same; 99% of the work is the same.
Laurentiu Popescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Product Officer at ClusterPower
Has improved threat detection with deep log analysis and streamlined investigation workflows
The most useful features I find in Elastic Security are the forensic ones that allow us to carry deeper analysis into the logs for in-depth investigations, and the dashboards, with the reporting dashboard being quite user-friendly. Elastic Security is quite good at identifying threats, as it is part of the deep investigation tool that I mentioned before. Unless we need to look further into a certain log, we can carry out a deeper analysis and forensics on those particular logs. I can assess the impact of Elastic Security's real-time data analysis on our threat response efficiency as working pretty good. We are looking for real-time analysis because we have a continuous inflow of logs from different sources: from our cloud, from Active Directory, from our network. So it works pretty well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of my favorite features of Cisco XDR is the automation tool, which saves a lot of time because we can craft these automations and workflows."
"One of my favorite features of Cisco XDR is the automation tool, which saves a lot of time because we can craft these automations and workflows."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the flexibility for a user to be able to create their own reporting and dashboards, ingest all the analytics, and make it something meaningful to their business to actually get real, purposeful information out of just a swamp of data."
"The features of Cisco XDR benefit my company since time is money. When outages happen and when a customer can't reach the internet, they get agitated. Therefore, the quicker we can mitigate an issue, our customers get happier in a quicker fashion."
"Technical support from Cisco is good and very helpful."
"Cisco XDR is built primarily for enterprise endpoint security, integrated onto endpoints with logs integrated into SIEM, and it is used for security investigations, malware impact investigation, and tracking particular security incidents through integration of different logs, where endpoint logs are very important, providing detail about processes run by potential malware and any call-outs made to command and control."
"The solution has a good community surrounding it for lots of helpful documentation for troubleshooting purposes."
"ELK is open-source, and it will give you the framework you need to build everything from scratch."
"We've found the initial setup to be quite straightforward."
"We chose the product based on the ability to scan for malware using a malware behavioral model as opposed to just a traditional hash-based antivirus. Therefore, it's not as intensive."
"It is the best open-source product for people working in SO, managing and analyzing logs."
"I can look at events from more than one source across multiple different locations and find patterns or anomalies. The machine learning capabilities are helpful, and I can create rules for notifications to be more proactive rather than responding after something has gone wrong."
"Elastic Security makes data communication easier."
"The solution is quite stable. The performance has been good."
 

Cons

"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost. Everything matters for us since we're small, mom and pop, so every dollar counts."
"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost."
"One area that needs improvement is the limited visibility due to the licensing structure. For more visibility, customers need the advantage or premier licensing, which involves additional costs."
"When we first started with Cisco XDR in August, everybody was having issues. There were three people in our organization, including me, who couldn't even log in to Cisco XDR."
"Improvements in Cisco XDR revolve around performance."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"The training that is offered for Elastic is in need of improvement because there is no depth to it."
"I want to find an automatic security system in the tool, like a SOAR solution. I am looking forward to seeing a SOAR system in the tool."
"Elastic Security has a steep learning curve, so it takes some time to tune it and set it up for your environment. There are some costs associated with logging things that don't have value. So you need to be cautious to only log things that make sense and keep them around for as long as you need. You shouldn't hold onto things just because you think you might need them."
"Upgrades currently released as stacks when it should be a plugin or an extension to save removal and reinstallation."
"Elastic Security's maintenance is hard and its scalability is a challenge. There are complications in scaling and upgrading. The solution needs to also provide periodic upgrade checks."
"If the documentation were improved and made more clear for beginners, or even professionals, then we would be more attracted to this solution."
"The tool should improve its scalability."
"The solution does not have a UI and this is one of the reasons we are looking for another solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"Elastic Stack is an open-source tool. You don't have to pay anything for the components."
"It is easy to deploy, easy to use, and you get everything you need to become operational with it, and have nothing further to pay unless you want the OLED plugin."
"Its price is fine. Its licensing works on a yearly basis. We have to renew the license every year. I also have a good experience with Darktrace. When we buy Darktrace, we get training free of cost, which is not there in Elastic. We have to pay extra for training. There is certainly room for improvement."
"Elastic Security is free to use."
"The pricing is in the middle. I think it is not an expensive experience if we compare it with big names, for example, QRadar, and also Oxide. I think Elastic Security is quite cheap. I would rate the pricing of this solution a five out of ten."
"The base product is open-source but if you need advanced security features then you need to pay for the subscription. Elastic Security's price is reasonable in some cases and in other cases it's not."
"There is no charge for using the open-source version."
"This is an open-source product, so there are no costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been intriguing. I used to work for a Cisco partner, and I still have friends there with whom I discuss comparisons regarding some hardwar...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
To improve Cisco XDR, I can't think of anything super meaningful because a couple of features I'm interested in are actually ones that integrate with Duo, but that's not widely used. I'm fine with ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
My primary use case for Cisco XDR is log review from devices, and then doing analytics for quicker responses in the future to security incidents.
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
What do you like most about Elastic Security?
Elastic provides the capability to index quickly due to the reverse indexes it offers. This data is crucial as it contains critical information. The reverse index allows fast data indexing because ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Security?
I am satisfied with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing cost. It is a pure 10.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Elastic SIEM, ELK Logstash
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Texas A&M, U.S. Air Force, NuScale Power, Martin's Point Health Care
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco XDR vs. Elastic Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.