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Fortra's Cobalt Strike vs XM Cyber 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

Fortra's Cobalt Strike
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (6th)
XM Cyber
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Controls Monitoring (3rd), Vulnerability Management (34th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (26th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Fortra's Cobalt Strike and XM Cyber aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Fortra's Cobalt Strike is designed for Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) and holds a mindshare of 2.5%, up 1.5% compared to last year.
XM Cyber, on the other hand, focuses on Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), holds 11.6% mindshare, down 14.4% since last year.
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortra's Cobalt Strike2.5%
Pentera23.2%
Cymulate15.6%
Other58.7%
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
XM Cyber11.6%
Pentera14.0%
Cymulate13.3%
Other61.099999999999994%
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2519427 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Compact, versatile, creates shell codes for bypassing antivirus and built-in report templates streamline the process
Probably its delivery methods could be improved. It might need some improvements on its spear phishing module. You can clone a web page, and then you can spear phish a target, and the target connects to your beacon. I believe that it needs to be more modernized to the current standards of multi-factor authentication bypass. Although there are already tools that actually do that, like Evilginx that’s been used as a proxy server, I truly believe Cobalt Strike could do something like that. I believe if Cobalt modernize this specific feature to try to bypass multi-factor authentication, it’s gonna be something. I’m not aware if it’s actually a feature in the latest Cobalt Strike updates, but from my version, I don’t see that it’s possible right now. I don’t think AI is at the stage where it can conduct such complex operations. AI is mostly being used to create phishing templates, very simple stuff. AI is not mature enough to do something more complex, although I truly believe that in a few years, it might have such capabilities.
Stephen Owen - PeerSpot reviewer
Group CISO at a insurance company with 51-200 employees
Has significantly improved risk visibility and optimized remediation efforts across dynamic environments
We tightly integrate with APIs, consuming feeds and open source data. We have integrated with XM Cyber, and we are elevating ourselves with AI and MCP tools as we view this as a forerunner to reducing the workload for our agents and IT staff. We're pushing all our security partners to provide AI and MCP tools. Our vision is for them to offer a chat interface where a junior IT or an experienced infrastructure engineer can ask for what needs to be patched next without using an interface. Their current interface is very usable and professional, ranking in the top tier of applications. Their reporting is good, offering custom reports, and their API integration is a new capability that serves us well. We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions. However, everything has been very good. We push the boundaries with digital twins; I understand XM Cyber uses a similar concept of graph databases to map environments. I would like access to that and querying languages, enabling more informed business decisions. XM Cyber sees much of our estate, which is beneficial for making informed decisions, and we can harness those insights and data for business analytics. For instance, it could help us gain insights into change management—if a particular server impacts another and that server is supported by yet another server, we could glean significant insights for change management meetings.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It also made a lot of post-exploitation activities easier."
"Cobalt Strike offers significant customization capabilities."
"The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation."
"Six weeks into using XM Cyber, we saw a compelling return on investment—primarily in risk reduction, with a specific issue our other security tooling did not pick up but XM Cyber did, reducing IT remediation time and saving over 60,000 US dollars per year while significantly lowering our loss exposure amount."
"Since implementing XM Cyber, we have improved the way we are doing patching, focusing on the choke points in our patching cycle, and it improves the way we assess the risk."
"It saves you money while making you more secure."
"XM Cyber permits us to identify if a zero-day vulnerability can affect our infrastructure; it helps me understand the company's total risk that we have in our infrastructure and workstation vulnerability, and it permits us to identify the real impact when we have a vulnerability."
"What I personally like very much, from my experience, is that it is very reliable."
"XM Cyber made it clear that browser vulnerabilities were the top priority because the platform was able to examine how vulnerabilities within our estate could be exploited and what the path would be from some bad actor in order to exploit those vulnerabilities."
"XM Cyber permits us to identify if a zero-day vulnerability can affect our infrastructure; it helps me understand the company's total risk that we have in our infrastructure and workstation vulnerability, and it permits us to identify the real impact when we have a vulnerability."
 

Cons

"Probably its delivery methods could be improved."
"The stability of the tool can be improved."
"They could improve support because when we need to create a super case and escalate to resolve with technical support, they resolve our ticket in approximately two weeks."
"We'd like to see a cheaper price."
"They could improve support because when we need to create a super case and escalate to resolve with technical support, they resolve our ticket in approximately two weeks."
"We have not saved any time or effort, but we can prove that the effort involved around vulnerability management has been better spent to greater effect, and we've been able to demonstrate that vulnerabilities that do represent a high risk have been remediated more rapidly and more effectively."
"We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions."
"We'd like to see a cheaper price."
"XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas."
"There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IBM i specific equipment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive."
"We have to pay standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Transportation Company
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Hospitality Company
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
While not inexpensive, Cobalt Strike is a comprehensive platform. Its pricing reflects the capabilities and flexibility it offers. The solution can be cost-effective when utilizing its full potenti...
What needs improvement with Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
The stability of the tool can be improved. There are some limitations, but they tend to be more from outside of the tool rather than within it. The limitations often come from operators who may lac...
What is your primary use case for Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
I use Cobalt Strike to emulate threat actor activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for XM Cyber?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that we have a large, complicated estate, and in the licensing discussions, we were keen not to have the cost balloon because of the compli...
What needs improvement with XM Cyber?
The roadmap is a disadvantage because this kind of technology should incorporate AI. At the moment, we don't have any modules with AI. They could improve support because when we need to create a su...
What is your primary use case for XM Cyber?
My major use case for XM Cyber is managing the services in our company, Prosegur Iberia, for Spain and Portugal. We develop and work together with XM Cyber technicians to develop use cases and anal...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Hamburg Port Authority, Plymouth Rock Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortra's Cobalt Strike vs. XM Cyber and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.