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Cisco XDR vs FortiXDR comparison

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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

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
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Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Cisco XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FortiXDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.6%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco XDR is 1.6%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FortiXDR is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.6%
Cisco XDR1.6%
FortiXDR1.3%
Other92.5%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Fred Parks - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Consultant at W.C. Bradley Co.
Centralized visibility has transformed incident investigations and now cuts response time dramatically
Workflows could definitely be easier to work with. Workflows are automated tasks that can be kicked off inside of a playbook. When someone is responding to something, they can click a button and it will perform automated tasks for them inside of these other products. The product can actually control the behavior of a firewall and you can write a rule in a firewall from Cisco XDR without having to go into the firewall software. However, if it is not a native workflow automation, it is very difficult to create your own. It is not intuitive and you almost have to be a developer and get really good with the API. This could definitely be improved on, particularly the custom workflow automation. Another thing that could be improved is Cisco documenting how it makes decisions, because there are certain factors or criteria that it uses from the source products. Cisco XDR gets all of its data from the integrations, so if you do not integrate anything, it is not going to do anything. Sometimes in these integration products, such as Secure Network Analytics or Cisco Security Exposure, they could be generating some type of alert and you do not necessarily see that in Cisco XDR. This is because it knows, maybe because of these other products, it is not really a big deal and is not big enough to raise an incident. However, I do not think Cisco does a great job in explaining what those rules are, such as why this happens and how this happens. This can cause some questions and some concern. I think it is doing the right thing, but I think it would be better if they had a rule set to say, based on this data, this is how the product actually works.
LL
Integration capabilities enhance compatibility across various cloud environments
I have extensive experience using Fortinet solutions, especially FortiXDR. I have implemented perimeter security in Azure, utilizing features such as web application firewall, application control, and security management.  I specialize in security for data centers, using various Fortinet solutions…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Automation and playbooks have helped me significantly, as Cortex Xnor's playbooks predefine the workflow of the automation, such as response processes, alert triggering, and enriching the context, efficiently detecting and blocking malicious attacks with firewalls while eliminating workload and speeding responses for next-generation operations."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"It is easy to use."
"Palo Alto is one of the tech vendors that always provides top-of-the-line products."
"Cortex XDR is a very capable solution for protecting large networks and a lot of endpoints. It's very useful because the automation is very high, and if you combine it with the features on Palo Alto firewalls, it provides very strong protection."
"Cortex is the best tool for endpoint detection, and I have used it to verify hashes or domains to identify malicious activity, trigger playbooks that automate and gather endpoint logs, block malicious processes, and update incident tickets, showcasing end-to-end processes with automation in investigation and reducing the analysis workflow."
"If the user leaves our premises or network, Palo Alto Traps will still be on that endpoint and will still apply our policies."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"Technical support from Cisco is good and very helpful."
"Cisco XDR has positively impacted my organization because instead of ten people working on one event, Cisco XDR can do many things an analyst can do, reducing the human effort required and coordinating everything."
"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 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."
"Since implementing Cisco XDR, our organization has improved its incident response process and overall SOC visibility."
"My advice for other organizations considering Cisco XDR is that it offers proactive security measures that are really very helpful."
"Cisco XDR is one of the most matured systems available."
"FortiXDR is valuable for its integration capabilities with one hundred percent compatibility with other vendors in cloud environments like Google, Oracle, and Microsoft."
"Our customers are satisfied with FortiXDR."
"The most valuable feature of FortiXDR is it integrates well with other Fortinet solutions, such as Fortinet firewall, FortiMail, FortiSandbox, Forti Fabric, switches, and access points. Whatever the flow of the traffic comes in or goes out, the entire traffic can be managed and monitored properly."
"The product is stable enough."
"The most valuable feature of FortiXDR is its ability to block clients, providing comprehensive endpoint protection."
 

Cons

"Cortex XDR is trickier to configure than other Palo Alto products. This is one area where we are not so satisfied."
"It is an enterprise-level solution. Its price could be less expensive."
"In reporting they should have a customizable dashboard due to the fact that C-level people don't like reporting to the IT department. They prefer to have a real-time dashboard. That kind of dashboard needs to have various customizations."
"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."
"The solution needs better reports. I think they should let the customer go in and customize the reports."
"Being able to filter the events to see those that are related to the actual alert would save time spent by the engineer."
"We have found that there are times Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks does not detect some of the viruses, we have to use another protection solution called Kaspersky."
"There is also no recovery feature; if some endpoint is under attack there must be the possibility of recovering it or restoring it to a normal state."
"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."
"Cisco XDR is working well, but the solution could be more cost-effective for mid-sized and small organizations."
"Customer support for Cisco XDR is a bit slow in the initial stages, but I believe it has improved nowadays."
"I would say I got to stop beta testing myself."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"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."
"One area where Cisco XDR could improve is the learning curve for new users, especially during initial setup and workflow customization."
"My only complaint about Cisco XDR is related to licensing, which is complicated."
"Improvement is needed in the intuitiveness and integration measures of FortiXDR, especially in terms of compatibility."
"Many of the solutions, such as CrowdStrike have an MDR solution where remediation can be provided by the vendor. For example, if there is any zero data threat found, a new threat that the customer is not able to recognize, fix, or understand what needs to be done this feature has to be added in FortiXDR so that the customer feels comfortable."
"The pricing of FortiXDR should be improved. It's a point of concern for us."
"They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Our license will require renewal in August, after which the maintenance will continue as usual."
"The solution is expensive. It's pricing is on a yearly-basis."
"The cost of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is $55 to $90 USD per endpoint per month."
"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"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."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"Licensing for Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR can be costly, especially when it comes to a hundred users. A license is required for each user, and the subscription must be renewed on a yearly basis."
"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."
"This is an expensive solution compared to other vendors, such as Check Point."
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902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
The centralized visibility, automation, and reduction in investigation time have provided good operational value for ...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
Cisco XDR could improve the UI customization experience. Some workflows still feel more complex than they need to be,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
We mainly use Cisco XDR for centralized threat detection and incident investigation, especially for correlating endpo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiXDR?
Comparing to the enterprise level, the pricing is reasonable. However, for some companies, it might be a little high.
What needs improvement with FortiXDR?
They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses.
What is your primary use case for FortiXDR?
We are a system integrator and cloud service provider. Although I am in sales and not technical, I am involved with t...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
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Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco XDR vs. FortiXDR and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.