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Forescout Platform vs Forescout XDR comparison

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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 XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (6th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Forescout Platform
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
19th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (6th), IoT Security (4th), Endpoint Compliance (2nd)
Forescout XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
47th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
SOC as a Service (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.6%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forescout Platform is 1.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forescout XDR is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.6%
Forescout Platform1.2%
Forescout XDR0.5%
Other93.7%
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.
AshishKumar Rai - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Comprehensive visibility has strengthened endpoint control and automated threat response across networks
When it comes to improving Forescout Platform, I have faced some issues recently, particularly with the switch integration part. When integrating a switch, it asks for the vendor type, and often it does not match. For example, one series of HP switches may not be found in that vendor list. This leads to frustration because you have to check again with different HP models, and once you integrate a switch, you cannot edit the vendor list without removing it. Other issues are being worked on, particularly related to switch integration. I believe they will be fixed in the next upgrade or patch fix. There are no major issues, but the configuration changes needed for the switch model are necessary, and I think it would help if during integration, an admin user could check the password or credential used, as they currently cannot see the password after it is entered and saved.
Utpal Sinha - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Network Engineer at Momentive
Provides efficient network access control, but its support services need improvement
We use the product for network access control The product has valuable features for cloud IoT device enhancement, intelligent threat detection, etc. We can easily quarantine any computer if it gets hacked. The product's support services have limitations. We have to connect with their senior…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is easy."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks saves time in various ways, although the user interface is fairly standard."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"Palo Alto is one of the tech vendors that always provides top-of-the-line products."
"We've had a significant increase in blocking with a decrease in false positives, because it's looking at how the files work, not just a list of files that it's been told to look for."
"It can automatically correlate events and logs, which is very helpful for an IT administrator. It can correlate different kinds of malware activities over a network, agent, or host system. You do not need to do it manually. It is a good feature. It is also a user-friendly solution. We have deployed it on the cloud because our space does not provide any flexibility for on-premises deployment, but Palo Alto has added some flexibility to install it on-premises. It must be like the same Cortex XDR agent for all the VPN services, web filtering services, and everything else."
"I don't have to do much monitoring with it; I don't have to have anybody manually looking at this, it gives us reports, and it lets us know if something needs to be addressed, and we can easily address it."
"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. The way they have done everything and integrated all the solutions that they've purchased over the years to make it a very seamless, effective product is very good. One thing about Palo Alto is that they take the products or services that they purchase and make them seamless for the end user as compared to some companies that purchase other companies and then just kind of have their products off to the side or keep different interfaces. Palo Alto doesn't do that."
"The 802.1X compliance authentication feature of this solution is very good."
"Forescout Platform is a very good NAC solution."
"The initial setup is easy, taking no more than two or three weeks."
"Forescout Platform's best feature is plug-in integration."
"Customer service is above average and technical support is above average."
"Automated policy enforcement is particularly valuable as it significantly reduces the need for manual intervention, thus enhancing efficiency and security."
"This product allows monitoring and control of the PC fleet across the company."
"This solution can be used to organize guest portals, integrate switches, and create policies, and some of its standard use cases also include completing key process upgrades and anti-virus of Windows OS."
"The product has valuable features for cloud IoT device enhancement, intelligent threat detection, etc."
 

Cons

"If he is using a smaller company, he can depend on some other tools because Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is a bit expensive."
"It is not very strong in terms of endpoint management. It should have additional features like DLP, encryption, or advanced device control. Currently, Cortex is good in terms of the security of the endpoints, but it is not as good as other vendors in terms of the management of the endpoint."
"It tends to do 99.9% of things. The only thing I'd like is single sign-on authentication into their cloud platform so that my users can be properly authenticated against it."
"A better pricing plan would make this product more competitive."
"The price could be a little lower."
"We have found that there are times Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks does not detect some of the viruses, we have to use another protection solution called Kaspersky."
"For Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, if I had to point out improvements, I would say the UI is still somewhat difficult for beginners."
"The downside to the solution is that there are a large number of false positives."
"In terms of technical support, their engineering team is very rigid."
"Custom integrations need to be better. I'd like to have the option, for example, to integrate the Forescout Platform with a customized application or any other software out there that I am using at the same time."
"The solution does have a bit of complexity, and there's some complexity in the deployment. Users need to be trained before undertaking an initial setup."
"Forescout Platform could improve the costs of integrations."
"It's scalable, but not without a big investment. It doesn't do so well at the branch. At the home office, it does okay and not so well at the branch."
"Multitenancy should be included in the next version so it could be used as a managed service provider."
"Customer support could be improved by providing direct assistance from Forescout employees or specialists at customer sites to enhance the support experience and effectiveness."
"We only looked at it in terms of discovery modes and I think it's too expensive to use for that purpose alone."
"The product is more expensive than other vendors in terms of features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"It is present, but when compared to other competitive products, I would say it is not less expensive; however, when all of the other added values are considered, the price is reasonable."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. I have customers that have voiced that the solution is good for the value but if I want to sell more of the solution the price reduction would help."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"It has reasonable pricing for the use cases it provides to the company."
"Every customer has to pay for a license because it doesn't work with what you get from a managed services provider."
"This is an expensive solution."
"They base the license on the number of devices, which is quite misleading."
"The cost of licensing for this product is quite high, but this cost covers all the features of the solution so it is a single payment for the term that has been selected."
"The price of the solution is reasonable. We have paid for the license for five years. We have integration with Symantec AV for orchestration, and we have an additional license."
"5,000 user licenses will cost you between seven and eight million dollars, compared to 20 million for Aruba."
"It is expensive because you have to pay for their CSM, the customer's access manager, and their professional services on top of that, and they charge you roughly $400 per hour, which is overhead."
"Devices with multiple IP's count multiple times against your license count."
"Time savings in finding rogue devices as well as identifying potentially unwanted devices on the network has saved the organization time and money."
"The fact that we were allowed to spin up as many servers as we had need of to support our geographic requirements while paying for licensing as an enterprise truly set Forescout apart from the crowd and improved the way we could design our access."
"The product is more expensive than other vendors in terms of features."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise45
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
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Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
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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,...
What advice do you have for others considering Forescout Platform?
Forescout is a very powerful NAC product that does not rely on port level configuration. It can detect and block unau...
What advice do you have for others considering Forescout Platform?
I would rate the Forescout Device and Visibility Control Platform at a six out of ten.
What advice do you have for others considering Forescout Platform?
I recommend doing a compression demo. If people use it, they will buy it. So they have to see the product in place. T...
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Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
Forescout Platform, CounterACT for Endpoint Compliance, ForeScout CounterACT
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
NHS Sussex, SAP, SEGA, Vistaprint, Miami Children's Hospital, Pioneer Investments, New York Law School, OmnicomGroup, Meritrust
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