Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

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5,744 views|4,276 comparisons
98% willing to recommend
Palo Alto Networks Logo
13,073 views|7,388 comparisons
94% willing to recommend
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1,375 views|761 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and Rapid7 InsightIDR based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Microsoft 365 Defender is a stable solution.""The 'Incidents and Alerts' tab is a valuable feature where we can find triggered alerts.""We can automate routine tasks and write scripts to carry out difficult tasks, which makes things easier for us.""Within advanced threat hunting, the tables that have already been defined by Microsoft are helpful. In the advanced threat hunting tab, there were different tables, and one of the tables was related to device info, device alert, and device events. That was very helpful. Another feature that I liked but didn't have access to was deep analysis.""The comprehensiveness of Microsoft's threat detection is good.""Setting up Microsoft 365 Defender is easy. It's a user-friendly solution that provides threat protection. It has good stability and scalability.""Another noteworthy feature that I find appealing in Microsoft Defender is the credit-backed simulation. This feature enables organizations to train their users on effectively responding to phishing emails through a simulated training environment.""The most valuable feature is the network security."

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"It is easy to use.""The most valuable feature is that you can select remote access of any machine for sandboxing.""It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem.""Cortex XDR lets us manage several clients from the same console, and its endpoint defense is more advanced than traditional antivirus.""It's a nice product that's stable and scalable.""Palo Alto is constantly adding new features.""It blocks malicious files. It prevents attacks. It doesn't require many updates, it's a very light application.""It integrates well into the environment."

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"It is a very stable solution.""Rapid7 is easy to use and deploy. It is a simple solution and has easy data pulling.""I like the tool's user analysis feature.""InsightIDR’s ability to process millions of transactions per day, and to notify me of the most critical ones, is priceless. InsightIDR has the alerts tuned, and has the ability to quickly drill down to determine the threat level.""I am able to run automated actions based on the output of reports, leaving me extra time to focus on more pressing matters.""Very intuitive and easy to set up.""Enables the use of honey pots, honey users, and honey files to monitor for suspicious patterns.""The solution is easy to use, and the interface is intuitive."

More Rapid7 InsightIDR Pros →

Cons
"The tool gives inconsistent answers and crashes a lot.""The cost can be high if you want to build custom license packages. Another area for improvement is the policies. In Azure, we need to implement policies in JSON format, but in 365 Defender 365, it would be helpful to use a different format so we can customize the platform.""Generally, antivirus products provide a central control to manage every device in terms of who is installing it or who is trying to disable it, but Microsoft doesn't have such a control center for the antivirus product it provides.""Defender also lacks automated detection and response. You need to resolve issues manually. You can manage multiple Microsoft security products from a single portal, and all your security recommendations are in one place. It's easy to understand and manage. However, I wouldn't say Defender is a single pane of glass. You still need to switch between all of the available Microsoft tools. You can see all the alerts in one panel, but you can't automate remediation.""The solution could improve by having better machine learning and AI. Additionally, the interface, documentation, and integration could be better.""We should be able to use the product on devices like Apple, Linux, etc.""When discussing the secure score, which includes overviews and recommended actions, some of these recommended actions are not applicable to us, particularly those related to Microsoft Internet Explorer, which we do not use in any of our environments.""Support is hit or miss. Microsoft wants you to buy premium support contracts. Though they call themselves professional support, it's almost like throwing questions into a black hole. You get an answer, but it's never helpful."

More Microsoft Defender XDR Cons →

"It's not an ideal choice for smaller businesses, as you need a minimum of 200 endpoints to even use the solution at all.""The installation should be easier and the Palo Alto pre-sales and sales teams should have more information on the product because they don't know what they are selling.""The solution should force customers to integrate with network traffic to see the full benefits of XDR.""There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around. In the hotel industry, we use a different type of data versus Oracle and SQL. By default, there are some policies which stop us from running properly. Because of this, the support level is also not that strong. We have to wait to get a results.""There is a severe gap in functionality between Windows, Linux, and Mac versions. For example all folder restriction settings are Windows only. Traps 5.0+ does not have SAML / LDAP integration.""The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced.""The encryption is not up to the mark.""A little bit more automation would be nice."

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"Tenable Nessus is easier to deal with. It's more efficient and accurate. InsightIDR is heavier than Tenable in terms of performance and scanning. Rapid7 would be much easier to use if it had a network connector like Tenable. Tenable's connector allows continuous monitoring over the B caps.""I would like the ability to adjust the threshold of certain existing alerts. Currently the only option is to change the notifications or create my own alert.""They should add more configuration and security features to it.""InsightIDR is only available in a cloud version. Some of our customers prefer an on-prem solution because they want to manage the security within their environment.""The product allows us to make only 30 custom rules.""I feel it would greatly benefit from more supported log sources.""Lacks a mobile application.""It would be useful to import threat intelligence in YARA format along with known incorrect email addresses.​"

More Rapid7 InsightIDR Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The solutions price is fair for what they offer."
  • "The price could be better. Normally, the costs depend on the country you're located in for the license. When we were in the initial stage, we went with the E5 license they call premium standard. It cost us around $5.20 per month for four users."
  • "The price of the solution is high compared to others and we have lost some customers because of it."
  • "Microsoft is not competitive with the pricing of the solution. The competitors are able to offer lower discounts. The price of the solution is higher."
  • "We have a lot of problems in Latin America regarding the price of Microsoft 365 Defender, because the relationship between dollars and the money of the different countries, it's is a lot. Many customers that have small businesses say that they would like the solution but it is too expensive. However, large companies do not find the cost an issue."
  • "The most valuable licensing option is expensive, so pricing could be improved. Licensing options for this solution also need to be consolidated, because they frequently change."
  • "Microsoft should provide lower-level licensing options. They should do it in such a way that even an individual could purchase a license, and it should be entirely flexible."
  • "They have moved from a licensing model to pay-per-use... The question is: What happens if, for any reason, there's not enough budget to accept this model? That could be a great problem."
  • More Microsoft Defender XDR Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I feel it is fairly priced."
  • "The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
  • "We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
  • "It is "expensive" and flexible."
  • "Traps pays for itself within the first 16 months of a three-year subscription. This is attributed to OPEX savings, as security teams spent less time trying to identify and isolate malware for analysis as a result of a reduction in malware incidents, false positives, and breach avoidance."
  • "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."
  • "It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
  • "The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."
  • More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "​I am sure that there are cheaper products out there, but none that meet so many of our needs whilst maintaining stability and usability.​"
  • "The team is very willing to work with companies. My suggestion is to call the Rapid7 sales department and see how they can help.​"
  • "Licensing is straightforward. If, for some reason, you don’t meet the minimum licensing requirements, there is a third-party managed service that can help."
  • "​Accurately predict your licensing counts as this is a subscription based product.​"
  • "The pricing and licensing are competitive."
  • "Licensing is by endpoint and amount of retention time (at least ours is). Default retention was one year, but we are able to push the retention further if needed. There's also a provide-your-own-S3 option for longer retention if you don't want to pay for the additional retention years in your Rapid7 agreement."
  • "It is a reasonably priced solution."
  • "It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."
  • More Rapid7 InsightIDR Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:I like Defender XDR's automation capabilities. XDR isn't automated by default, but you can automate it to respond. If an… more »
    Top Answer:While Microsoft Defender XDR carries a higher cost, its ease of use compared to Defender may justify the investment.
    Top Answer:Defender XDR has good threat visibility, but it could be better in some areas, like when we are hunting for a specific… more »
    Top Answer:Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks.… more »
    Top Answer:Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions that… more »
    Top Answer:Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface… more »
    Top Answer:For tools I’d recommend:  -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is… more »
    Top Answer:During simulations or demonstrations, the tool generates alerts, providing details such as the specific application, its… more »
    Top Answer:We chose Rapid7 because of its price. IBM QRadar charges us based on data storage. Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
    Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
    InsightIDR
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender XDR is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect against threats in the Microsoft 365 environment. 

    It offers robust security measures, comprehensive threat detection capabilities, and an efficient incident response system. With seamless integration with other Microsoft products and a user-friendly interface, it simplifies security management tasks. 

    Users have found it effective in detecting and preventing various types of attacks, such as phishing attempts, malware infections, and data breaches.

    Watch the Microsoft demo video here: Microsoft Defender XDR demo video.

    Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is the first threat detection and response software to combine both visibility across all types of data as well as autonomous machine learning analytics. Threat detection very often requires analysts to divide their attention among many different data streams. This platform unifies a vast variety of data flows, which allows analysts to assess threats from a single location. Users can now maintain a level of visibility that other threat detection programs simply cannot offer. This level of transparency lends itself to both quick identification of problems that arise and the equally quick development of a potential solution.

    Cortex XDR’s machine learning works on many different levels to detect and prevent threats. It is constantly scanning for threats and vulnerabilities. The solution can scan up to 5.4 billion IP addresses in three-quarters of an hour. This allows it to spot weak points in the system and notify administrators long before hackers can take advantage of vulnerabilities. Once the Artificial Intelligence (AI) discovers an issue or an area where an issue could potentially take place the system creates a log of the information and subsequently sends an alert to system administrators. The AI takes the information that it has gathered and uses it to assign threat levels to the issues that it detects. Following this, a human analyst will be assigned to manually assess the issue and deal with it accordingly. You can set it to automatically respond to the threat by isolating the issue while analysts investigate it.

    Benefits of Cortex XDR

    Some of Cortex XDR’s benefits include:

    • The use of advanced AI analytics, behavior analytics, and custom-made detection to detect advanced threats before they occur.
    • The ability to group similar threat alerts, reducing incoming alerts by as much as 98%. This allows analysts to avoid being overwhelmed by the volume of incoming alerts.
    • The ability to investigate threats as much as 8 times faster than would be possible with other software. The machine learning, when coupled with the unified data stream that Cortex XDR collects, significantly increases the ability to more quickly discover the root cause of a threat.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks software stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its ability to isolate threats while enabling them to be studied and the way that the software combines all of the data that it gathers into a single, more complete picture than other solutions offer.

    PeerSpot users note the effectiveness of these features. A network designer at a computer software company wrote, “The solution has a very helpful isolation feature. If any system gets compromised, with one click I can access the system and isolate it from other networks, and then go into further forensic investigation of the current threat without compromising anything else.”

    Jeff W., Vice President/CTO at Sinnott Wolach Technology Group, noted, “The ability to kind of stitch everything together and see the actual complete picture is very useful. I guess you'd call it a playbook. Some people call it the forensics analysis of what was happening on particular endpoints when they detected some malicious behavior, and what transpired before that to cause that. It is also very user friendly.”



    Parsing hundreds of trivial alerts. Managing a mountain of data. Manually forwarding info from your endpoints. Forget that. InsightIDR instantly arms you with the insight you need to make better decisions across the incident detection and response lifecycle, faster.

    Sample Customers
    Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
    CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
    Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company19%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Government11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Security Firm9%
    Government7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Comms Service Provider21%
    Security Firm14%
    Non Tech Company14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business44%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise57%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise37%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise56%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business61%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise18%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise54%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 3rd in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with 80 reviews while Rapid7 InsightIDR is ranked 13th in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with 29 reviews. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4, while Rapid7 InsightIDR is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks writes "It provides a whole new level of visibility and integrates with most other vendors". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rapid7 InsightIDR writes "An affordable product that is easy to use and has many advanced features and default templates". Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, Darktrace, Symantec Endpoint Security and Trend Micro Apex One, whereas Rapid7 InsightIDR is most compared with Darktrace, Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk Enterprise Security, Rapid7 InsightVM and IBM Security QRadar. See our Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR report.

    See our list of best Extended Detection and Response (XDR) vendors and best Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) vendors.

    We monitor all Extended Detection and Response (XDR) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.