Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Datadog comparison

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto N...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and Datadog based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs. Datadog Report (Updated: December 2025).

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs. Datadog

December 2025

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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 Cloud by Palo Alto N...

Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)

23rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (38th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (17th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (16th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (14th), Software Supply Chain Security (14th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (9th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (9th)

Datadog

Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

210

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (1st), Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (2nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd), AIOps (1st), AI Observability (1st)

Featured Reviews

Nuno-Santos

Cybersecurity Analyst at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Has improved real-time threat detection and unified cloud protection through AI and automation

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is creating some confusion in terms of names because this is recent. They changed the names of the products and are now clarifying their offer. The family of the products is not easy to follow because it's very recent. Regarding the generative AI security tool, I know for sure it's Agentic. Based on my experience with Palo Alto, I can suggest what Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks could make better or what additional functions could be added. This is the best tool in the market. It's not the time to tell what they could do better because it's a recent tool. The market is now adopting it. Our experience doesn't show that they need to do more.

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Dhroov Patel

Site Reliability Engineer at Grainger

Has improved incident response with better root cause visibility and supports flexible on-call scheduling

Datadog needs to introduce more hard limits to cost. If we see a huge log spike, administrators should have more control over what happens to save costs. If a service starts logging extensively, I want the ability to automatically direct that log into the cheapest log bucket. This should be the case with many offerings. If we're seeing too much APM, we need to be aware of it and able to stop it rather than having administrators reach out to specific teams. Datadog has become significantly slower over the last year. They could improve performance at the risk of slowing down feature work. More resources need to go into Fleet Automation because we face many problems with things such as the Ansible role to install Datadog in non-containerized hosts. We mainly want to see performance improvements, less time spent looking at costs, the ability to trust that costs will stay reasonable, and an easier way to manage our agents. It is such a powerful tool with much potential on the horizon, but cost control, performance, and agent management need improvement. The main issues are with the administrative side rather than the actual application.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have absolutely seen improvements in our incident close rates, with mean time to detect and respond reduced significantly, sometimes by at least forty to fifty percent."

"I have seen several benefits from using Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks: It was easy to use and easy to migrate from the IBM platform."

"The AI and automation features in detecting and responding to high-risk threats are impressive; it's one of the best tools regarding AI technology and unifies security in one platform in real-time, improving vulnerability analysis, incident response, and compliance reporting."

"Overall, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a technically strong product, and I rate it ten out of ten."

"Its logs are most valuable."

"The solution's SaaS model is easy to manage and works well in single- or multi-cloud environments."

"The most valuable features are logging, the extensive set of integrations, and easy jumpstart."

"We integrate our application logs. It is great to be able to tie our metrics and our traces together."

"Straightforward to integrate and automate."

"Datadog has impacted my organization positively as this is our main observability tool when it comes to monitoring services, traces, and all resources within key services."

"The observability on offer is the most useful aspect of the product."

"Datadog has had a significant positive impact on our organization overall, particularly in visibility, reliability, and cost efficiency, allowing us to centralize metrics, logs, and traces across our cloud, moving from reactive to proactive monitoring, with improvements including faster incident detection and resolution, enhanced service reliability, better cost and resource optimization, and shared dashboards providing the engineering and product teams a single source of truth for system health and performance, thus enhancing our overall observability and operational efficiency."

More Datadog pros

Cons

"Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is creating some confusion in terms of names because this is recent."

"The pricing is high, making ROI challenging to justify, especially during transitions between solutions."

"Some aspects of the GUI can be confusing and make it difficult for me to find certain options or navigate where needed."

"Overall, I rate Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks as an eight out of ten. I think that it could improve on price, as I know that the Google solution has the best price, and this is one of the conditions."

"The query performance could be improved, particularly when handling large datasets, as slower response times can hinder efficiency."

"When I started using it years ago, it had stability problems. I remember, specifically, we ran everything in Docker containers. There were some problems getting it into a Docker container with very specific memory limits."

"While the tool is robust with many different capabilities, users would greatly benefit from more examples in the documentation."

"We have contact with many customers that cover many areas, so we have cases where the infrastructure administration could be improved."

"I've only been using Datadog for a few months, and at first, it was frankly overwhelming in terms of both the UI and the available capabilities."

"There is always room for improvement when dealing with cloud-based technologies. Mainly, I would say, it's just increasing our offerings to attract various other types of industries and businesses across more fields."

"We need more advanced querying against logs."

"The product needs to have more enterprise approach to configuration."

More Datadog cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Pricing seems reasonable. It depends on the size of your organization, the size of your infrastructure, and what portion of your overall business costs go toward infrastructure."

"I am not satisfied with its licensing. Its payment is based on the exported data, and there was an explosion of the data for three or four weeks. My customer was not alerted, and there was no way for them to see that there has been an explosion of data. They got a big invoice for one or two months. The pricing model of Datadog is based on the data. The customer was quite surprised about not being alerted about this explosion of data. They should provide some kind of alert when there is an increase in usage."

"Sometimes it's very hard to project how much it will cost for the monthly subscription for the next month when you add certain features. Having better visibility of the cost would give a better experience."

"Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics."

"The cost is high and this can be justified if the scale of the environment is big."

"My advice is to really keep an eye on your overage costs, as they can spiral really fast."

"It has a module-based pricing model."

"While it is an expensive product, I would rate the pricing level at four out of five."

More Datadog pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Performing Arts

11%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	80
Midsize Enterprise	46
Large Enterprise	98

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?

The solution is costly, with high-end capabilities suitable for enterprises. It is less affordable for startups or small-scale vendors.

What needs improvement with Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?

There are areas that could be improved from Palo Alto's side. I think that we need to start using the AI module because it is the new offering, but I do not have specific suggestions. The support t...

What is your primary use case for Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?

Our main use cases involve working with QRadar, which is the IBM solution. We are now starting to migrate customers to Palo Alto Networks.This work is usually in a specific industry like telco comp...

Any advice about APM solutions?

There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...

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...

Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...

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Product Reports

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

January 2026

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report

Download Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks product report

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January 2026

Overview

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks provides comprehensive cybersecurity management, focusing on enhancing security operations with advanced automation and threat intelligence, addressing complex security challenges efficiently.

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks integrates cloud-scale data analytics and automation to streamline security operations, enabling faster threat detection and response. It leverages AI and machine learning to provide real-time threat intelligence and automate routine tasks, reducing the burden on security teams. Users benefit from improved visibility across networks and greater operational efficiency, making it crucial for enterprises aiming to secure their digital assets against evolving cyber threats.

What are the key features of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?

Automated Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates threats in real-time using AI algorithms.
Advanced Analytics: Provides in-depth data insights for proactive threat prevention.
Incident Management: Streamlines incident response with automated workflows.
Scalable Architecture: Offers flexibility to grow with organizational needs.

What benefits or ROI should you expect from Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks reviews?

Increased Efficiency: Automation reduces manual efforts in threat management.
Enhanced Security Posture: Improved visibility leads to better threat preparedness.
Cost Savings: Minimizes expenses related to manual threat detection and response.
Scalability: Grows with the organization, reducing the need for constant upgrades.

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is favored in sectors like finance, healthcare, and telecommunications, where data security is paramount. Its ability to integrate with existing infrastructure and provide real-time insights makes it a preferred choice for securing sensitive information and ensuring compliance within industry regulations.

Palo Alto Networks

Datadog integrates extensive monitoring solutions with features like customizable dashboards and real-time alerting, supporting efficient system management. Its seamless integration capabilities with tools like AWS and Slack make it a critical part of cloud infrastructure monitoring.

Datadog offers centralized logging and monitoring, making troubleshooting fast and efficient. It facilitates performance tracking in cloud environments such as AWS and Azure, utilizing tools like EC2 and APM for service management. Custom metrics and alerts improve the ability to respond to issues swiftly, while real-time tools enhance system responsiveness. However, users express the need for improved query performance, a more intuitive UI, and increased integration capabilities. Concerns about the pricing model's complexity have led to calls for greater transparency and control, and additional advanced customization options are sought. Datadog's implementation requires attention to these aspects, with enhanced documentation and onboarding recommended to reduce the learning curve.

What are Datadog's Key Features?

Sharable Dashboards: Facilitate collaboration with customizable, intuitive dashboards.
Extensive Integrations: Seamlessly connects with tools like Slack and AWS to support workflows.
APM and RUM: Provides deep insights into application performance and user interactions.
Real-Time Tools: Enables agile responses to system issues with real-time monitoring.
Unified Tagging and Visualization: Eases management of complex systems with simplified visualization.

What Benefits and ROI Should Users Look For?

Efficient Troubleshooting: Centralized logging speeds up the identification and resolution of issues.
Streamlined Workflows: Integrations with popular tools enhance operational efficiency.
Improved Observability: Comprehensive monitoring improves system reliability and performance.
Resource Optimization: Efficient microservices and container management leads to better cloud resource utilization.
Responsive Alerts: Customizable alerts ensure timely identification of critical issues.

In industries like finance and technology, Datadog is implemented for its monitoring capabilities across cloud architectures. Its ability to aggregate logs and provide a unified view enhances reliability in environments demanding high performance. By leveraging real-time insights and integration with platforms like AWS and Azure, organizations in these sectors efficiently manage their cloud infrastructures, ensuring optimal performance and proactive issue resolution.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's