We performed a comparison between Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and SentinelOne based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products receive high marks from reviewers. However, SentinelOne comes out on top in this comparison due to its impressive security and EDR features, attractive price, and impressive ROI.
"appreciate the File Trajectory feature, as it's excellent for an analyst or mobile analyst. I can track everything that happens on our server from my PC or device. Integration with SecureX is a welcome feature because it connects Cisco's integrated security portfolio with our complete infrastructure. Sandboxing is helpful, and integration with the Cisco environment is excellent as we use many of their products, and that's very valuable for us."
"The most valuable feature is its threat protection and data privacy, including its cyber attack and data protection, as we need to cover and protect data on user devices."
"Device Trajectory is one of the most valuable features. We're able to dig in and really understand how things came to be and where to focus our efforts."
"The most valuable feature is signature-based malware detection."
"It is extensive in terms of providing visibility and insights into threats. It allows for research into a threat, and you can chart your progress on how you're resolving it."
"Definitely, the best feature for Cisco Secure Endpoint is the integration with Talos. On the backend, Talos checks all the signatures, all the malware, and for any attacks going on around the world... Because Secure Endpoint has a connection to it, we get protected by it right then and there."
"The threat Grid with the ability to observe the sandboxing, analyze, and perform investigations of different malicious files has been great."
"Another of my favorite features is called the Device Trajectory, where it shows everything that's going on, on a computer. It shows the point in time when a virus is downloaded, so you can see if the user was surfing the internet or had a program open. It shows every running process and file access on the computer and saves it like a snapshot when it detects something malicious. It also has a File Trajectory, so you can even see if that file has been found on any of your other computers that have AMP."
"Cortex covers everything I need. It's a perfect solution. Cortex provides a different level of visibility because it's an extended EDR, allowing you to grab logs from the network and firewalls. Palo Alto invented the concept of the extended EDR or XDR."
"Stability is one of the features we like the most."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"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."
"The initial setup isn't too bad."
"The stability of this product is very good."
"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"They did what they said. This solution could apply to any scenario."
"The most valuable feature of SentinelOne is the good graph it provides. It has a specific page where it detects the recent attacks on other machines or the hackers, for example, group APT28 and all."
"The product can scale."
"The most valuable feature of SentinelOne is the EDR functionality. We are protected against threats, such as ransomware."
"The Storyline feature has significantly affected our incident response time. Originally, what would take us hours, now it takes us several minutes."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"Offers good protection against ransomware."
"Sentinel One has improved our organization by protecting the environment we are working in."
"We are able to write some custom rules on SentinelOne."
"The Linux agent is a simple offline classic agent, and it doesn't support Secure Boot, which is important to have on a Linux machine. The Linux agent has conflicts with other solutions, including the Exploit Prevention system found in Windows servers. We didn't find a fix during troubleshooting, and Cisco couldn't offer one either. Eventually, we had to shut down the Exploit Prevention system. We didn't like that as we always want a solution that can fit smoothly into the setup without causing problems, especially where security is concerned. The tool also caused CPU spikes on our production machine, and we were seriously considering moving to another product."
"It could be improved in connection with artificial intelligence and IoT."
"In Orbital, there are tons of prebuilt queries, but there is not a lot of information in lay terms. There isn't enough information to help us with what we're looking for and why we are looking for it with this query. There are probably a dozen queries in there that really focus on what I need to focus on, but they are not always easy to find the first time through."
"In terms of the user experience, if the UX design could be much simpler [that would improve things]... if they could make it more intuitive for someone who is not an engineer so that they still can read what's going on in their webpage and understand, that would be something."
"They could improve the main dashboard to more clearly show me the things that I want to see. When I open the dashboard right now, I see a million things and they are not always the things that I need."
"The thing I hate the most, which they have not fixed, is when it creates duplicate entries within a console. If you have a computer and you upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, or you upgrade your agent from version 6 to 7, it creates a new instance in there instead of updating the information. Instead of paying a license for one computer, I have to license two computers until I manually go in, search for all the duplicate entries, and clean them out myself."
"We don't have issues. We think that Cisco covers all of the security aspects on the market. They continue to innovate in the right way."
"An easier way to do deduplication of machines, or be alerted to the fact that there's more than one instance of a machine, would be useful... That way you could get a more accurate device count, so you're not having an inflated number."
"Cortex XDR could be improved with more GUI features."
"Impact on system performance is horrible, adding a lot of delays for users."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can improve mobile integration to allow access to the console."
"In terms of areas of improvement, we have not completed our review of the product. We're also looking at other products. So, it's a little bit hard to tell what could be different because we have not completed the review of this product, but based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"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."
"It should support more mobile operating systems. That is one of the cons of their infrastructure right now."
"It would be good if they could make an exception for applications. Sometimes, it can be a bit of a challenge to make exceptions for certain applications that have been used as rogue."
"The solution should offer more dashboards and they should be better customized."
"SentinelOne's performance and the accuracy of its incident filtering could be improved."
"The solution does not have an application security and control module."
"The solution should include USB blocking for specific machines."
"The only concern we have is that there are a few features that were not readily available."
"SentinelOne can improve by having better integration with Active Directory."
"Their CASB tool needs to mature. I think there are some CASB vendors out there that have a dashboard tool that's much more mature than SentinelOne. That would be the only constructive criticism that I have."
"It would be good to see some small tools to test files or hashes that are a potential threat, I know there are already products offering this."
"The delay in updating inventory is ten minutes. If it can be improved, it will help a lot."
More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 4th in EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) with 43 reviews while SentinelOne is ranked 3rd in EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) with 49 reviews. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4, while SentinelOne is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks writes "Easy to set up, reliable, and always scanning". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SentinelOne writes "Provides deep visibility, helpful and intuitive interface, effectively prevents ransomware attacks ". Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Crowdstrike Falcon Endpoint Security and XDR, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Darktrace, Symantec Endpoint Security and Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, whereas SentinelOne is most compared with Crowdstrike Falcon Endpoint Security and XDR, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Darktrace, Sophos Intercept X and ESET Endpoint Security. See our Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. SentinelOne report.
See our list of best EPP (Endpoint Protection for Business) vendors.
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I haven't used Cortex. My worry with it and every other solution is how well does it perform when disconnected from the cloud/ the internet?
S1 - I have been using it for a couple of years now without an issue. I had been using Cylance prior. I've been very happy with the S1 solution. Works with or without the Internet.
Depends on the size, scope and needs of your environment.
XDR is an ok monitoring/alerting tool, especially if you have a Palo Alto firewall already and everything can integrate well together. However, S1 is a superior tool IMHO and can catch and fix things automatically if you so choose (magic quadrant agrees).
Cost-wise XDR is probably cheaper but I don't know specifics on-prem vs cloud. S1 is a cloud tool but is extremely fast and responsive compared to some other tools we POC'd and can support legacy devices w2k8 and below or Linux or VDI without having to special of workarounds. So again, it depends on your needs, environment and cost.
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 the environment is note-worthy. Sentinel One works inconspicuously in the background, continually providing protection. It has an automated active EDR that will not only find issues but can fix them. I don’t know that any other solution does that.
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto has a nice console and is easy to use. One of my favorite things about it is that it will automatically connect and log various kinds of suspicious behavior - you don’t need to do it manually. Cortex XDR is very secure but it is missing some basic features. It doesn’t offer an on-prem solution and it doesn’t integrate so well with some third-party solutions.
SentinelOne can be challenging to set up and there seem to be some applications that do not function properly when SentinelOne is installed. I would like to be able to make the reporting more specific to my needs. It would be a more attractive option if the cost was lower.
Conclusions
The find-and-fix option that SentinalOne provides was a huge win for us. We feel it provides a deeper and more thorough level of security.