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Cisco XDR vs FortiXDR comparison

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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)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Cisco XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FortiXDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.8%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco XDR is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FortiXDR is 1.5%, up from 1.0% 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 Networks4.8%
Cisco XDR1.5%
FortiXDR1.5%
Other92.2%
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.
Fred Parks - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Consultant at W.C. Bradley Co.
Centralized visibility has transformed incident investigations and now cuts response time dramatically
Workflows could definitely be easier to work with. Workflows are automated tasks that can be kicked off inside of a playbook. When someone is responding to something, they can click a button and it will perform automated tasks for them inside of these other products. The product can actually control the behavior of a firewall and you can write a rule in a firewall from Cisco XDR without having to go into the firewall software. However, if it is not a native workflow automation, it is very difficult to create your own. It is not intuitive and you almost have to be a developer and get really good with the API. This could definitely be improved on, particularly the custom workflow automation. Another thing that could be improved is Cisco documenting how it makes decisions, because there are certain factors or criteria that it uses from the source products. Cisco XDR gets all of its data from the integrations, so if you do not integrate anything, it is not going to do anything. Sometimes in these integration products, such as Secure Network Analytics or Cisco Security Exposure, they could be generating some type of alert and you do not necessarily see that in Cisco XDR. This is because it knows, maybe because of these other products, it is not really a big deal and is not big enough to raise an incident. However, I do not think Cisco does a great job in explaining what those rules are, such as why this happens and how this happens. This can cause some questions and some concern. I think it is doing the right thing, but I think it would be better if they had a rule set to say, based on this data, this is how the product actually works.
LL
Integration capabilities enhance compatibility across various cloud environments
I have extensive experience using Fortinet solutions, especially FortiXDR. I have implemented perimeter security in Azure, utilizing features such as web application firewall, application control, and security management.  I specialize in security for data centers, using various Fortinet solutions…

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 isn't too bad."
"Cortex XDR is a very capable solution for protecting large networks and a lot of endpoints. It's very useful because the automation is very high, and if you combine it with the features on Palo Alto firewalls, it provides very strong protection."
"The solution doesn't need a high level of technical training."
"The solution is a new generation XDR that has a lot of artificial intelligence modules."
"Cortex XDR lets us manage several clients from the same console, and its endpoint defense is more advanced than traditional antivirus."
"The product's most valuable features are massive user and feature intelligence exploit detection."
"Its interface and pricing are most valuable, and it is better than other vendors in terms of security."
"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the flexibility for a user to be able to create their own reporting and dashboards, ingest all the analytics, and make it something meaningful to their business to actually get real, purposeful information out of just a swamp of data."
"Cisco XDR is one of the most matured systems available."
"The features of Cisco XDR benefit my company since time is money. When outages happen and when a customer can't reach the internet, they get agitated. Therefore, the quicker we can mitigate an issue, our customers get happier in a quicker fashion."
"Cisco XDR has positively impacted our organization by providing faster detection of complex threats, reducing alert fatigue, and giving us better visibility."
"The biggest ROI from Cisco XDR was time savings in the SOC, as we saw triage and investigation time drop by roughly 40 to 50 percent for common incidents because analysts were not manually coordinating alerts across multiple tools anymore."
"Cisco XDR has positively impacted my organization because instead of ten people working on one event, Cisco XDR can do many things an analyst can do, reducing the human effort required and coordinating everything."
"The merging of all of that data into one display is probably the best benefit of Cisco XDR."
"Cisco XDR is built primarily for enterprise endpoint security, integrated onto endpoints with logs integrated into SIEM, and it is used for security investigations, malware impact investigation, and tracking particular security incidents through integration of different logs, where endpoint logs are very important, providing detail about processes run by potential malware and any call-outs made to command and control."
"The product is stable enough."
"Our customers are satisfied with FortiXDR."
"The most valuable feature of FortiXDR is it integrates well with other Fortinet solutions, such as Fortinet firewall, FortiMail, FortiSandbox, Forti Fabric, switches, and access points. Whatever the flow of the traffic comes in or goes out, the entire traffic can be managed and monitored properly."
"FortiXDR is valuable for its integration capabilities with one hundred percent compatibility with other vendors in cloud environments like Google, Oracle, and Microsoft."
"The most valuable feature of FortiXDR is its ability to block clients, providing comprehensive endpoint protection."
 

Cons

"Technology evolves every day, so it would be nice if it gets more secure. It can also have more integration with other platforms."
"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around."
"In terms of areas of improvement, we have not completed our review of the product. We're also looking at other products. So, it's a little bit hard to tell what could be different because we have not completed the review of this product, but based on our experience so far, its implementation is quite complex."
"While using Cortex, I noticed some aspects that could be improved, such as increasing the synchronization speed between XDR and Xnor."
"Previously, the endpoint would leave the environment, not being on our VPN, essentially unable to interact with the server to upload files. It was unable to retrieve new file verdicts. It was using a thing called "local analysis" to determine if something was a malicious file or not. There was no dynamic analysis."
"It should support more mobile operating systems. That is one of the cons of their infrastructure right now."
"The solution needs better reports. I think they should let the customer go in and customize the reports."
"Dashboards do not allow everyone to see what's happening."
"I believe the false positive reports can be reduced through AI automation, as well as the duration while loading the software."
"If we have a list of domains we need to block, such as 4,000 domains, I can only block 100 domains at a time because if I put in more than 100 domains, I hit that 2,000 character max and can't continue with an investigation. Being able to put in all 4,000 domains, without a character limit or observable limit, would make doing those case books a whole lot easier and blocking those domains a whole lot easier too."
"Regarding the pricing aspect of Cisco XDR, I think the price is a bit expensive."
"Cisco XDR is working well, but the solution could be more cost-effective for mid-sized and small organizations."
"Cisco XDR could improve the UI customization experience."
"Cisco XDR can be improved in terms of out-of-the-box integrations and standard operating procedures available on the platform where we would not have to refer to documents outside of the platform to integrate."
"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost. Everything matters for us since we're small, mom and pop, so every dollar counts."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses."
"Many of the solutions, such as CrowdStrike have an MDR solution where remediation can be provided by the vendor. For example, if there is any zero data threat found, a new threat that the customer is not able to recognize, fix, or understand what needs to be done this feature has to be added in FortiXDR so that the customer feels comfortable."
"Improvement is needed in the intuitiveness and integration measures of FortiXDR, especially in terms of compatibility."
"The pricing of FortiXDR should be improved. It's a point of concern for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Very costly product."
"The tool's price is moderate."
"The price of the product is not very economical."
"I feel it is fairly priced."
"I don't recall what the cost was, but it wasn't really that expensive."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
"It's way too expensive, but security is expensive. You pay for your licensing, and then you pay for someone to monitor the stuff."
"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."
"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"This is an expensive solution compared to other vendors, such as Check Point."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business48
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise56
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
The centralized visibility, automation, and reduction in investigation time have provided good operational value for ...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
Cisco XDR could improve the UI customization experience. Some workflows still feel more complex than they need to be,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
We mainly use Cisco XDR for centralized threat detection and incident investigation, especially for correlating endpo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiXDR?
Comparing to the enterprise level, the pricing is reasonable. However, for some companies, it might be a little high.
What needs improvement with FortiXDR?
They could change their licensing costs to make it more affordable for smaller businesses.
What is your primary use case for FortiXDR?
We are a system integrator and cloud service provider. Although I am in sales and not technical, I am involved with t...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
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Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco XDR vs. FortiXDR and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.