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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Mandiant Advantage comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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...
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th)
Mandiant Advantage
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
26th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Attack Surface Management (ASM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 5.6%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mandiant Advantage is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

NiteshSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Automated threat response and behavioral control improve security measures
I recommend adding a data loss prevention (DLP ( /categories/data-loss-prevention-dlp )) solution to Cortex XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ) by Palo Alto Networks. The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of DLP ( /categories/data-loss-prevention-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.
SameepAgarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
In-depth traffic analysis and proactive support reduce investigation time
The live IOC feed identifies the type, technique, and tactics used. This becomes handy since then I know what to refer to from the playbook. For instance, if I take a use case of someone with Mimikatz installed on their system, knowing the nature beforehand reduces investigation time. I can quickly apply the playbook to resolve incidents in less time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is easy to use and does not consume a lot of hardware resources."
"The integrations are out-of-the-box, as are the playbooks."
"One of the things that I enjoy the most is using policy extensions. It's like having host firewalls to control USB connections. I think it's a wonderful tool to restrict use when connecting to our computers. Another important tool is Home Insights. That is an add-on to the Cortex solution. I like that because we can see all the vulnerabilities in the environment and control what assets are connected to our network."
"The solution allows us to make investigations. Other XDR solutions also provide similar capabilities but for investigation, Cortex XDR is better."
"It's very stable. I've never experienced downtime for the ASM console or ASM core."
"One thing that I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, it is detecting all the suspicious or malicious binaries, and it has integration with Palo Alto Firewall."
"The product has an intuitive dashboard."
"The tool is easy to use."
"The live IOC feed identifies the type, technique, and tactics used."
"The feature I have found most valuable is directory monitoring. We experienced an instance of threat actors trying to ensure a complex and massive attack against our customer's infrastructure on the forum. That is, they were animating people on a formum. The solution alerted us to this two days ahead of the attack, which gave us plenty of time to prepare for it."
"The scalability of Mandiant Advantage deserves a ten out of ten."
"It is so valuable to have someone performing these functions outside of our business hours when we don't have staff in the building. We've seen a lot of solid metrics on the amount of malware that it's detecting and resolving. We're pleased with it so far."
"I have never faced stability issues."
"The advantage of the solution is being able to go look up threat actors and get a lot of detailed information about different attacks and different tactics and general information about threats."
"Mandiant Advantage is excellent at providing the full context and all the information, where the information was found, and the full data, including the raw data that was uploaded onto the Internet."
 

Cons

"The solution can never really be an on-premises solution based simply on the way it is set up. It needs metadata to run and improve. Having an on-premises solution would cut it off from making improvements."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management. It would be useful to look at the client's issue to fix it."
"The encryption is not up to the mark."
"If they had pulse rate detection, it would be better."
"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."
"Previously, the endpoint would leave the environment, not being on our VPN, essentially unable to interact with the server to upload files. It was unable to retrieve new file verdicts. It was using a thing called "local analysis" to determine if something was a malicious file or not. There was no dynamic analysis."
"Currently, we are monitoring all USB drives and ports but we would like to improve our device control capabilities."
"The tool needs to be improved in terms of integration and interface."
"I think that the data query that is used for data cloud language should be improved. It's really hard to query actual data from the platform."
"Collaboration of data in my view becomes a bit clogged, requiring effort to understand visually."
"They could have better support. Now that they've merged, they are moving towards a portal system, which isn't very helpful."
"Sometimes Mandiant Advantage becomes noisy when dealing with widely recognized companies due to false positives."
"Sometimes Mandiant Advantage becomes noisy when dealing with widely recognized companies due to false positives."
"Mandiant's on-prem client is too processor-intensive, so it's putting a strain on the local device's CPU. When a scan is running on the device, the other processing tasks slow to a crawl. We're still trying to figure out the correct settings for the client."
"I have already given them feedback that their UI needs improvement since sometimes there is a lag. The side-by-side depiction of request response and action clogs the screen."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an expensive solution."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"I did PoCs on products called Cylance and CrowdStrike. Although, I consider these products and they were also good, when it come to cost and budgetary factors, Traps has been proven to be better than the other two products. It is quite cost-effective and delivers all the entire solution which we require."
"The cost of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is $55 to $90 USD per endpoint per month."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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. The ability to reverse damage caused by ransomware with minimal interruptions to...
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 that are very scalable, secure, and user-friendly. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto offers ...
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, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
What needs improvement with Mandiant Advantage?
Sometimes Mandiant Advantage becomes noisy when dealing with widely recognized companies due to false positives. More fine-tuning is required to handle famous company names. It also handles alerts ...
What is your primary use case for Mandiant Advantage?
I use it for cyber threat intelligence. I gather information about newly created domains around the Internet that can be related to my managed company. I monitor these domains for any phishing acti...
What advice do you have for others considering Mandiant Advantage?
I would advise exploring multiple functions because there are many different capabilities of Mandiant Advantage. For small organizations, try every feature included in the package. Use known source...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Mandiant Threat Intelligence
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Stater Bros. Markets, Rush Copley, Blackboat, CapWealth
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Mandiant Advantage and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.