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Rapid7 InsightIDR vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

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 Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
34th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (24th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (11th), Threat Deception Platforms (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (19th)
WatchGuard Firebox
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), Firewalls (12th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (7th), Application Control (4th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard Firebox is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks3.7%
WatchGuard Firebox1.3%
Rapid7 InsightIDR1.3%
Other93.7%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

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.
Prajwal Chougale - PeerSpot reviewer
System Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Centralized threat hunting has improved alert accuracy and simplifies incident investigations
I would say there are two areas for improvement: the reporting dashboard that provides insights or reports weekly or monthly lacks detailed information about how logs are being ingested. While the details are there, they could be more concise and easier to understand for any level of authority. The second area is alert tuning; compared to Microsoft Sentinel, Rapid7 InsightIDR provides fewer alerts with more static alert functionality and lacks dynamic alerting exposures. There could be improvements to learn from past alert activities for more dynamic alert configurations. These two areas are the main areas for improvement; everything else is good.
Abhishek Saini - PeerSpot reviewer
Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT
Centralized security management has improved VPN reliability and simplified daily operations
WatchGuard Firebox is a strong and reliable platform overall, but there are a few areas where improvements could make the experience even better. One area is the user interface and navigation in some management tools. While the platform is powerful, certain configurations and troubleshooting workflows can feel less intuitive compared to some newer cloud-native firewall platforms. Another point is reporting and log analysis. Although the logging features are very useful, deeper analytics and more customizable reporting dashboards would make security monitoring much more effective. Firmware upgrades and policy synchronization can sometimes require careful planning to avoid security interruptions. Overall, the core security and VPN functionality are very solid, but improving usability, reporting, and automation would make the platform even stronger. One area that could be improved is the learning curve for new administrators. While experienced engineers can work with the platform effectively, some advanced networking and security configurations can be a bit complex for junior technicians. More guided configuration workflows, smarter recommendations, and simplified troubleshooting tools would make onboarding easier. Another improvement would be more flexible reporting customization for executive-level and client-facing reports.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the main benefits of the solution is its intelligence to correlate the events into an incident."
"The solution is a new generation XDR that has a lot of artificial intelligence modules."
"On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks a nine."
"We switched because there were a lot of added features with Palo Alto that Check Point didn't have, and it was an upgrade for us."
"The tool's use cases are relevant to security."
"Stability is a primary factor, and then there's the ease of distribution and policy management; Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very easy to work with, and we're quite happy with them."
"Based on my experience with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, I highly recommend it due to its quick response to zero-day attacks and low utilization from end-user devices."
"The interface is easy to use and it is more up to date than our previous solution."
"I like that it's a cloud-based solution."
"The biggest reason why we chose Rapid7 was to gain value in a really quick time. Its deployment doesn't take months. It just takes a few days."
"The solution is very intuitive, it's easy to set up, is absolutely stable, and has a lot of integration with other security products."
"I am able to run automated actions based on the output of reports, leaving me extra time to focus on more pressing matters."
"InsightIDR helps us investigate an environment to discover information about incidents."
"The technical support is a solid 10 out of 10 as they take the time to answer any questions or problems which may arise in a reasonable time frame."
"They can subscribe to Rapid7 because it is more valuable and delivers a greater return on investment."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR integrates well with other solutions. It's also easy to configure because Rapid7 InsightIDR has a lot of instructions posted on their website that customers can follow if they need to get the source log."
"Firebox is 10 out of 10 at what it does."
"My advice to others looking into using WatchGuard Application Control is that it's a great solution."
"The set up was quite straightforward and we handled it in-house. It took a few hours to deploy the product."
"They've done a lot of work with their SD-WAN, which we do use, to have our old internet service with our new internet service. If anything goes down on a particular interface, I can have different rules applied. Most of my users don't even know when our primary internet goes down anymore... I don't have to be here to do anything to switch it to our backup internet or to switch it back."
"I find that their tech support is excellent. And as a reseller, my relationship with my point of contact is also strong. WatchGuard does a good job of maintaining that."
"Because of the way it's organized and the user-friendliness of the device, it does make my job managing the firewall profiles and security a lot easier."
"I find WatchGuard Firebox provides very good value, with configuration migration between boxes, more flexible traffic management, best performance, strong security layers and dependencies, protocol-oriented design, rapid deploy for remote configuration, total protection for inbound and outbound traffic with deep understanding of the traffic, powerful DNS security for both network and mobile users, SD-WAN features that manage line quality, extensive exception handling, and a rich set of integrated security services like Access Portal, Application Control, APT Blocker, Botnet Detection, DLP, Gateway AntiVirus, DNSWatch, Geolocation, IntelligentAV, IPS, Reputation Enabled Defense, spamBlocker, Threat Detection and Response, and WebBlocker."
"In terms of users within the campus, the policy-based usage helps us where we allow something during the daytime, something after school hours, and something during the night."
 

Cons

"The product's pricing could be better."
"I have faced some issues with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks; there is room for improvement in the sense that certain options prevent us from seeing and segregating data."
"Impact on system performance is horrible, adding a lot of delays for users."
"In the next release, I would like to see more UI improvements. Their UI is a bit basic. When we are speaking about Palo Alto Networks they are the big company, so they can improve the UI a little bit. The UI, the reports, the log system can all be improved."
"There's an overall lack of features."
"Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR does not detect malicious activity like in other anti-virus solutions like Trend Micro and Windows with Cisco."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by proving hard disk encryption. If it could support this it would be a complete solution."
"Based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"I chose eight out of ten because of the analytical rules; they lack dynamic rules, and also due to the dashboard and reporting part."
"The ability to tune the collector for custom logs would greatly help."
"Sometimes, it is hard to get the right queries to use. Currently, the tool lacks a pre-made set of queries."
"The product allows us to make only 30 custom rules."
"Rapid7's customer support is awful. They didn't respond at all."
"The APIs can be further improved in Rapid7."
"The dashboard is an area that could be simplified. For management, it should be clear and the files should be there."
"The main problem lies in the processes within the client's operating systems."
"One area for improvement could be making the interface even more user-friendly."
"This is a great product and offers great protection but they don't hear the customers' needs. They don't make improvements as per the customers' requests."
"We would like to see granular notification settings and more advanced filtering in traffic monitoring."
"Regarding technical support, they could use more engineers. There is less support from engineers and they give you less time."
"In terms of usefulness and reducing frustration, at my level, it's a three."
"They are working on cloud-based options. However, they do not have the options fully functional in their solution at this time."
"The pricing could be improved. It is definitely one of the more expensive products, though you can't really compare it to Ubiquiti or SonicWall."
"The performance of the solution's processor needs to be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution has one subscription for endpoint protection and one subscription for detection and response. The two licenses combined give you the BRO version."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"I am using the Community edition."
"The price of the product is not very economical."
"It is cost-effective compared to similar solutions. It fits for the small businesses through to the big businesses."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"In terms of the cost Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is very expensive because we are a Mexican company and when you translate dollars to pesos the cost is very high. The solution is very expensive for Mexican companies. I understand that they have international prices, but I do not think it offsets the price enough for many companies in countries, such as Mexico. The amount it is reduced is not a massive percentage."
"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is a cheaply priced product. On a scale of one to ten, where one is very expensive, and ten is very cheap, I rate the product's price at seven or eight."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR is priced very well and is cost-effective."
"​Accurately predict your licensing counts as this is a subscription based product.​"
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable but we have challenges with the Minimum Order Quantity. It is not reasonable for customers who have less than one hundred devices. If they can reduce Minimum Order Quantity, it is good. You have to pay around 5000-6000 dollars per year for the product. The pricing includes maintenance and support costs."
"It is on a yearly basis. For our own company, for about 250 users, it was 16,000 euros a year."
"It is more reasonably priced than other vendors."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
"The pricing and licensing are competitive."
"The primary reason that we went with Firebox was its cost. It is very economical and it provided us with all the security functions that we were looking for at the time. And the throughput was more than what we required, so it was a very cost-effective device to deploy on our network."
"The licensing contract we have is on a three-year basis. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees—usually, every three years, we just purchase or renew the same license and we are okay. Every six years, we completely change the firewall, but that's the usual schema. So after three years, we just renew the licenses for another three years, and then after that particular period of time, we just purchase another firewall equivalent to the ones that we currently use."
"For what we use, the tool's price has been reasonable, but it is not the cheapest. The tool has been quite reasonable."
"The price of the WatchGuard Firebox is reasonable."
"Cheap."
"The cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000 to $3,000 for each one..."
"The cheapest configuration, for maybe five people, is approximately $500."
"It's an affordable tool"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business104
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise17
 

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. ...
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 th...
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 SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 InsightIDR?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been very positive; it is cost-effective and offers great ...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightIDR?
I would say there are two areas for improvement: the reporting dashboard that provides insights or reports weekly or ...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
InsightIDR
WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 InsightIDR vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.