Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cortex vs SolarWinds Service Desk 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Service Desk
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
36th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cortex is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Service Desk is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

NikhilSharma1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides comprehensive network visibility and helps us identify threats efficiently
The product could be improved in several areas. The complexity and confusion regarding product variants, such as XDR, Forexiant, and Forexon, must be addressed. There is also a need for clearer differentiation between features and capabilities within Cortex's suite, as the overlap between XDR and XIM can be confusing. Improvements in the user interface and more intuitive KQL query handling could also enhance usability. Additionally, better support for various deployment scenarios and cost management options would be beneficial.
Rajendra Karad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides superior visibility and efficiency with excellent analytics capabilities
What I appreciate the most about the product is that, as per the name given, it brings better visibility to the client in terms of their infrastructure, application, and performance. SolarWinds Service Desk is a quite matured product now, making it one of the best options on the market. The incident management feature is aligned to the ITIL framework. The asset management feature is also a very thoughtful framework they have implemented. Right from onboarding an asset till scrapping it, the complete lifecycle is cleanly maintained within the system itself. All the approval chains, their logs, and even the contract information have been made very easy for the users to maintain. The knowledge base feature is an out-of-the-box knowledge base, and additionally, we can integrate our own DMS. Machine learning is something that they have been following, and we can integrate an external DMS with that, which helps in searching SOPs and even the global knowledge base over the internet, allowing it to be searched within the same single window itself. Change management in SolarWinds Service Desk is linked with the service catalog, and since it also has a service portal, a self-service portal for users, introducing a service catalog that's integrated with the change management actually completes the flow and makes life easier for IT administrators.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It was easy to integrate Cortex with existing infrastructure and other tech tools."
"The solution's stability is generally good."
"The solution's most valuable feature is writing playbooks."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"It would be more beneficial to integrate threat intelligence in Cortex."
"The complexity and confusion regarding product variants, such as XDR, Forexiant, and Forexon, must be addressed."
"It's quite lagging and not very fast."
"The integration with other applications can use improvement because, for example, it was nearly impossible to integrate SolarWinds Service Desk with monday.com because we had to get an add-on from Zapier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cortex is an expensive solution."
"Cortex XDR is a costly solution."
"It's cheaper compared to its competitors."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions are best for your needs.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cortex?
It would be more beneficial to integrate threat intelligence in Cortex.
What is your primary use case for Cortex?
With Cortex, we can automate the analysis of all the alerts. We use it to automate any kind of activity.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex vs. SolarWinds Service Desk and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.