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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Sophos Central comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.2
Cortex XDR enhances security and cost efficiency by reducing malware incidents, consolidating solutions, and ensuring data protection.
Sentiment score
6.7
Sophos Central is cost-effective, enhances resource use, excels in threat detection, and integrates well, boosting financial returns.
They appreciate the rich telemetry data from the solution, as it provides in-depth threat identification.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks helps to reduce my total cost of ownership significantly.
Detection and Response Consultant at Inovasys
I have seen a return on investment with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, as this product is offered at a minimal cost, and we can find a good ROI from it.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
We returned our investment within the first year.
Supervisor, Infraestructura Information Technology at Refineria Dominicana de Petroleo
After adopting Sophos Central, we can easily integrate with ServiceNow, which means fewer employees, and that translates to money saved.
Senior Security Analyst at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Customer opinions on Cortex XDR support vary, praising expertise yet noting slow resolutions and regional language challenges.
Sentiment score
7.9
Sophos Central's support receives mixed reviews, varying from quick, knowledgeable assistance to delays and communication challenges across regions.
The technical support from Palo Alto deserves a mark of ten because they reach out within an hour whenever assistance is needed.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
There is no back and forth, and they know what we are asking for and come up with the best resolution for a solution.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
If any of these services are missed, it becomes a problem in terms of support tickets, follow-up, or special configuration that needs to be done in the system.
Chief of IT Architecture at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
In my recent experience with a support ticket, the engineer was not very effective and took longer than I expected.
Senior Security Analyst at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
If I call support at any time, they will assign a new engineer according to SLA immediately or within one to three hours.
Project Incharge at IT Solution
Sophos Central integrates effectively with other products.
Supervisor, Infraestructura Information Technology at Refineria Dominicana de Petroleo
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cortex XDR scales efficiently across diverse environments, enabling rapid deployment and seamless expansion for various company sizes.
Sentiment score
6.9
Sophos Central excels in scalability and ease of expansion, earning high satisfaction from enterprises of all sizes.
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can be expanded anytime by purchasing another license without any issues related to scalability.
Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
I think scalability for Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is good.
Threat Analyst II at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sophos Central's scalability is excellent because I can add any licenses at any time without needing to create a new console.
Project Incharge at IT Solution
I believe Sophos Central's scalability is good compared to other EDR solutions that we have.
Senior Security Analyst at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Cortex XDR is reliable, stable, easy to deploy, with some minor issues in updates and heavy data loads.
Sentiment score
7.1
Sophos Central is stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and effective integration across devices despite occasional performance concerns.
Cortex remains fast and responsive, even with increasing data and alerts.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The thresholds we've seen on our firewall boxes at some instances reached 80% to 85%, but even at that level of utilization, we don't observe any latency or any issues reported with respect to accessing the application.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is stable, offering high quality and reliable performance.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XDR needs better reporting, UI, integration, reduced resource use, enhanced support, and more automation for improved usability.
Sophos Central needs improvements in speed, integration, user-friendly authentication, flexible licensing, support efficiency, and enhanced app capabilities.
Improving reporting and dashboard customization, along with the addition of real-time and exportable reports, would help SOC teams greatly.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
The inclusion of this feature would allow the application of 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.
Pre-Sales Architect at network techlab
If the per GB data could be provided at a certain level free of cost or at the same cost which the customer is taking for the entire bundle, that would be better.
Cyber Security Information Security Specialist at MHM Holding GmbH
I would add that the logs in Sophos Central should be more detailed. Sometimes, when we're checking the logs, they simply state that a file is blocked, but we can't find out why that is the case.
Senior Security Analyst at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I saw how I can query history from my workstation to do threat intelligence.
Supervisor, Infraestructura Information Technology at Refineria Dominicana de Petroleo
I think Sophos Central could be improved by offering an on-premises option because some users prefer to keep their data locally rather than in the cloud.
Project Incharge at IT Solution
 

Setup Cost

Cortex XDR is costly but offers flexible licensing and robust security, with discounts available for long-term commitments.
Sophos Central offers competitive pricing with perceptions varying from slightly expensive to cost-effective, lacking some licensing flexibility.
The pricing on SentinelOne is far more reasonable and cheaper than Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks.
Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would say it is definitely not a cheap product, considering how mature it is and how scalable all Palo Alto products are together.
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Cortex XDR is perceived as expensive by some customers, yet offers dynamic pricing.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
My thoughts on the pricing or licensing with Sophos Central are that it is very good.
Supervisor, Infraestructura Information Technology at Refineria Dominicana de Petroleo
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XDR offers AI-driven threat detection, seamless integration, and intuitive features for robust, adaptive endpoint and network protection.
Sophos Central is praised for centralized management, ease of use, integration, real-time detection, and affordability for small businesses.
It incorporates AI for normal behavior detection, distinguishing unusual operations.
Cyber Security Manager at Welab bank
The product provides automation responses in case of a threat attack, severity assessments, centralized manageability, and comprehensive compliance features, resulting in reduced costs.
Pre-Sales Architect at network techlab
It includes machine learning to easily analyze data and detect complex threats across endpoints, networks, or clouds.
Final Year Student at Gitam University
If it detects malware, it blocks it and then it sends it through to Sophos Central, which then sends me an email notification that one of the workstations picked up an infection or encountered an issue.
Senior IT Consultant at ICTS Group of Companies
Sophos Central has positively impacted my organization because it allows us to utilize Sophos products in a single pane of glass, and with its synchronized security, it helps to protect our environment more effectively by isolating infected devices from the internet.
Project Incharge at IT Solution
Sophos Central is very user-friendly and easy to manage.
Supervisor, Infraestructura Information Technology at Refineria Dominicana de Petroleo
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (5th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd)
Sophos Central
Ranking in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 10.0%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Central is 0.8%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks10.0%
Sophos Central0.8%
Other89.2%
AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
 

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.
Fayas Ummer - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Analyst at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized threat blocking has reduced manual monitoring but still needs better exclusions and logs
One way Sophos Central can be improved is in its exclusion capabilities. When we try to exclude legitimate files, we find that it requires a lot of effort, as we cannot simply exclude one file from every detection. Due to the layered approach, it takes time to exclude even one file, indicating that the exclusion process could definitely be enhanced. I would add that the logs in Sophos Central should be more detailed. Sometimes, when we're checking the logs, they simply state that a file is blocked, but we can't find out why that is the case. More detailed logs could significantly improve the log collecting aspect. Areas for improvement in Sophos Central are log collection, exclusion processes, and customer support. Aside from these points, I believe the overall product is great.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise44
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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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 do you like most about Sophos Central?
One of the significant advantages of Sophos is its affordability compared to other technologies like Check Point and Fortinet.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Central?
My thoughts on the pricing or licensing with Sophos Central are that it is very good.
What needs improvement with Sophos Central?
On a couple of older machines, Intercept X does tend to slow a computer down significantly, but on new, modern Windows 11 machines, I have not detected this issue yet. Intercept X tends to pick up ...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. Sophos Central and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.