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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs CrowdStrike Falcon comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2025

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
5.8
Cortex XDR offers cost-effective security with reduced infections, compliance support, enhanced efficiency, rich data, and competitive pricing.
Sentiment score
7.2
CrowdStrike Falcon enhances productivity and security, reducing downtime and costs while simplifying deployment and minimizing system overhead.
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
CrowdStrike Falcon saves time and offers good value for money, especially for enterprise companies, because it can stop breaches.
IT consultant at Asuransi Ramayana
It's very easy to deploy without many IT admins, saving time.
IT Manager at Jord International Pty Ltd
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Cortex XDR support quality varies; users experience both commendable assistance and challenges, depending on region and support plans.
Sentiment score
7.0
CrowdStrike Falcon's customer service is fast and knowledgeable, but some find room for improvement in high-stakes situations.
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
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as a 10 because they resolve many issues for us.
CyberSecurity Architects at VaporVM
The CrowdStrike team is very efficient; I would rate them ten out of ten.
Security Analyst at NTT Ltd
They could improve by initiating calls for high-priority cases instead of just opening tickets.
Information Security Specialist at Arab Open University
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cortex XDR is scalable and cloud-based, efficiently supporting thousands of endpoints across various enterprise environments without scalability issues.
Sentiment score
7.8
CrowdStrike Falcon is scalable, supporting seamless expansion across environments and accommodating thousands of endpoints without performance issues.
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
It has adequate coverage and is easy to deploy.
Senior Principal Information Security Analyst at Veritas Technologies LLC
In terms of scalability, I find CrowdStrike to be stable, and I have not encountered any limitations with it.
CyberSecurity Architects at VaporVM
There's no scalability limitation from CrowdStrike itself, as it just requires agent deployment.
Large account Manager at Softcell Technologies Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cortex XDR is stable and reliable, with minimal performance issues and consistent performance despite initial configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
8.1
CrowdStrike Falcon is highly rated for stability, minimal issues, easy integration, and prompt resolution, ensuring reliable performance.
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
I have never seen instability in the CrowdStrike tool.
Security Analyst at NTT Ltd
We are following N-1 versions across our environment, which is stable.
Senior Principal Information Security Analyst at Veritas Technologies LLC
The biggest issue occurred when every computer worldwide experienced a blue screen.
Information Security Specialist at Arab Open University
 

Room For Improvement

Cortex XDR needs better compatibility, UX, report customization, and pricing while reducing performance issues and enhancing automation and detection.
CrowdStrike Falcon needs improved integration, reporting, support, cost-effectiveness, and feature expansion with enhanced interfaces and policy flexibility.
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
Simplifying the querying process, such as using double quote queries or directly obtaining logs based on IP addresses or usernames, would be beneficial.
Security Analyst at NTT Ltd
Another concern is CrowdStrike's GUI. It changes annually, making it hard to work and find options.
Senior Principal Information Security Analyst at Veritas Technologies LLC
Threat prevention should be their first priority.
Group Manager at HCLSoftware
 

Setup Cost

Cortex XDR offers flexible licensing, ranging $55-$90 annually, deemed cost-effective despite higher setup costs, suitable for any enterprise.
CrowdStrike Falcon offers variable pricing based on volume and features, with discounts, providing robust security for enterprises.
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
It is expensive compared to SentinelOne, but as the market leader, it is worth it.
Senior Principal Information Security Analyst at Veritas Technologies LLC
The licensing cost and setup costs are affordable.
Computer Engineer at OIC, Alshirawi
The solution is a bit expensive.
Information Security Specialist at Arab Open University
 

Valuable Features

Cortex XDR offers advanced threat detection, AI capabilities, easy integration, remote management, and rapid response, enhancing security measures.
CrowdStrike Falcon offers AI-driven threat detection, real-time visibility, cloud-native architecture, and seamless incident response for robust security.
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
I can investigate by accessing the customer's host based on the RTR environment and utilize host search to know details for the past seven days, including logins, processes, file installations, malicious processes, and network connections.
Security Analyst at NTT Ltd
The real-time analytics aspect of CrowdStrike performs well because we get all logs in real-time, with no delay, allowing us to take action immediately.
CyberSecurity Architects at VaporVM
Being an EDR solution, it helps us identify attacks in real-time.
Information Security Specialist at Arab Open University
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
5th
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
8th
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
7th
Ranking in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Ransomware Protection (2nd)
CrowdStrike Falcon
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
1st
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
1st
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
1st
Ranking in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
136
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (6th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (1st), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (1st), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 5.0%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon is 11.0%, down from 17.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CrowdStrike Falcon11.0%
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks5.0%
Other84.0%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

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.
Waleed Omar - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Specialist at Arab Open University
Provides effective real-time threat detection with potential for cost optimization
Some features such as device control, firewall management, and file analysis are standalone products that we need to purchase separately. If these features came out of the box within the product, it would be much more beneficial for us. Other providers such as SentinelOne include these features in their base product. We attended a CrowdStrike Falcon event where they discussed some shallow AI features, but we cannot see these in our panel yet. We work with different solutions such as Darktrace and SocRadar, where AI features are automatically displayed in our dashboards after release. However, for CrowdStrike Falcon, we cannot see these features.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise43
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise62
 

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...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
Is Crowdstrike Falcon better than Trend Micro Deep Security?
I like that Crowdstrike allows me to easily correlate data between my firewalls. What’s most useful for my needs is the intelligence modules feature. I also find that Crowdstrike Falcon’s dashboard...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
CrowdStrike Falcon, CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike Identity Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Surface, CrowdStrike Falcon Platform
 

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. CrowdStrike Falcon and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.