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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)
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
3
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
64
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (7th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cisco XDR is 1.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Security is 5.8%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Aruna Udawatte - PeerSpot reviewer
Network visibility improves with centralized maintenance and responsive support
The single point of maintenance and dashboards are the strong points of Cisco XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ). The visibility of the network is the main valuable feature. Customers frequently request features that offer better system visibility. The solution also offers automated response capability, which I would rate around eight out of ten.
SyedAli17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring improves security posture through rapid data processing
The processing part of Elastic Security ( /products/elastic-security-reviews ) is very interesting for us since we handle almost 7,000 to 8,000 alerts per minute. We require rapid processing speed for alerts and event data, and Elastic Security is very efficient at handling this level of data. Additionally, Elastic Security helps improve the security posture of Pakistan through centralized visibility and real-time processing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support from Cisco is good and very helpful."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the prevention methods and the incident alerts."
"Elastic Security is very customizable, and the dashboards are very easy to build."
"It's very stable and reliable."
"I like that it's a SIEM platform. I like that I can sell Elastic Security quickly. Elastic Security has a large community that can support users."
"We like Elastic Security because it's a REST API-based solution. That's the primary reason we use it."
"It's a good platform and the very best in the current market. We looked at the Forester report from December 2022 where it was said to be a leader."
"It's very customizable, which is quite helpful."
"The indexes allow you to get your results quickly. The filtering and log passing is the advantage of Logstash."
 

Cons

"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."
"If we have a list of domains we need to block, such as 4,000 domains, I can only block 100 domains at a time because if I put in more than 100 domains, I hit that 2,000 character max and can't continue with an investigation. Being able to put in all 4,000 domains, without a character limit or observable limit, would make doing those case books a whole lot easier and blocking those domains a whole lot easier too."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"We'd like better premium support."
"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."
"Authentication is not a default in Kibana. We need to have another tool to have authentication and authorization. These two should be part of Kibana."
"Continuous upgrades can be quite inconvenient. My security testing team continuously reports vulnerabilities, and we have to fix and update the versions frequently."
"One thing they could add is a quick step to enable users who don't have a solid background to build a dashboard and quickly search, without difficulty."
"Elastic has one problem. In the past, Elastic Security was free. Now, they currently only offer the basic license or a certain period of time."
"It's a little bit of a learning curve to understand the logic of searching for things and trying to find what you're looking for in Elastic Security."
"The solution's basic setup takes time, and a lot of effort is required from the beginning to make it actually work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Affordable but with additional costs"
"The tool's pricing is flexible and comes at unit cost. You don't have to pay for everything."
"I can say that the product is cheaply priced."
"The price is reasonable. It probably costs the same as ArcSight and LogRhythm SIEM. FortiSIEM might cost less than Elastic Security. There are no hidden or additional costs."
"There is no charge for using the open-source version."
"The licensing cost of Elastic Security is based on the daily ingestion rate. I can't recall the exact figure, but for 10GB of log action daily, it would cost around $20,000."
"The solution is free."
"Compared to other products such as Dynatrace, this is one of the cheaper options."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
Costs vary depending on dollar fluctuations. Cisco requires conversion to dollars, which affects the cost compared to local competitors who bill in local currency. Overall, the price is a bit expen...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
An issue that we have with Cisco XDR is the observable list. These observables are basically similar to a chess board where you have a certain number of spots to put pieces. It's the same concept w...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
I use Cisco XDR because I'm a SOC analyst. It's something I use every single day. The majority of my work has been in Cisco XDR looking through incidents, reading reports that it gives, and making ...
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?
Since Elastic Security is community-based, it does not require significant costs. This is beneficial for SMEs as they do not need extensive budgets for security solutions.
 

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: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.