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Guardz vs Varonis Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 9, 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 Ransomware Protection
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Guardz
Ranking in Ransomware Protection
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (43rd), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (58th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (72nd)
Varonis Platform
Ranking in Ransomware Protection
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (17th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (8th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (6th), Data Governance (5th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd), Compliance Management (8th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (5th), Insider Risk Management (1st), AI Security (8th)
 

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.
Steve Bowtell - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at Cyber Active
Exceptionally easy to integrate and covers a multitude of cybersecurity issues
The solution's interface appears very simple, but it is very complicated in the back end. So, it removes all the complications that an MSP or an MSSP would normally have. The solution's maintenance depends on whether you run it like an MDR platform where you provide the detection response part for the customer. That would normally be the MSP part. Sometimes, you have customers who are just happy to get an email and tell them what the problem is, and they fix it themselves. If there's no in-house expertise, the MSP or the MSSP can do the maintenance. If there's in-house expertise, it's just a matter of advising them. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
TarunKumar11 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Leadership Council at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Data governance has strengthened and automation now reduces risk and manual compliance work
Varonis Platform offers key features including data discovery, data classification, data analysis, governance, user and entity behavior analysis, also known as UEBA, which helps in ransomware detection, insider threat detection, and compliance reporting. It does a lot of automation from a remediation standpoint, as well as investigation and forensics. The number one feature that makes the biggest difference for my clients is visibility into unstructured data; that is the most difficult for organizations to achieve. They do not have a good understanding of where sensitive data resides, who has access to this data, whether this access is appropriate, and how data is being used. Varonis Platform provides visibility, governance, threat detection, and automated remediation around data. Varonis Platform is a great data discovery platform that provides visibility into sensitive data estimates and how it is being used. Clients have been able to reduce excessive permissions, strengthen their compliance posture, detect insider threats, and ransomware activity, which would otherwise be difficult and manual. Varonis Platform is deployed in my clients' organizations in a combination of all types. Many clients use Varonis Platform in a largely SaaS-based model since it is a data security platform consumed in this way, and many organizations still operate hybrid environments. As far as Varonis Platform is in a position to get the data source and identify systems, it can discover and classify more secure data. Deployment in most of our clients is cloud-based, connecting to Microsoft 365, AWS, or other SaaS applications such as Salesforce. In other environments, it is a hybrid deployment with SaaS and on-premises, including file servers, NAS devices, and AD servers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cortex is a very good total solution on the endpoints."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks should be a stable solution."
"The stability of the solution is very good. We have about 100 users on it right now, and we use it twice a week."
"Palo Alto Networks Traps improves our security posture and lowers risk by providing next-gen methods to combat against modern threats on all the major platforms."
"After deploying Traps, we saw the performance of the network improve by 65 to 70 percent."
"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"The tool is easy to use."
"The anti-exploit is impenetrable. We chose Traps because it is the only product that we were not able to get anything past."
"The solution is exceptionally easy to integrate and covers a multitude of cybersecurity issues."
"Varonis Platform has definitely reduced the risk of data breaches at many client sites and has definitely lowered manual effort; manual effort has decreased by seventy percent due to automating data classification and permission reviews."
"I also appreciate the reporting feature, which allows for the extraction of various reports based on specific needs. These reports can be used for audit purposes, such as tracking changes in file locations or deletions."
"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."
"There's also a 90-day policy where if a user is not using the warehouse, it will automatically delete that username."
"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."
"Technical support from Varonis is rated as nine out of ten."
"This solution informs us about who's moving data, whether accidentally or on purpose."
"The solution ensures that users have not accidentally shared sensitive information with the wrong people or too many people."
 

Cons

"The solution should force customers to integrate with network traffic to see the full benefits of XDR."
"There are some default policies which sometimes affect our applications and cause them to run around. In the hotel industry, we use a different type of data versus Oracle and SQL. By default, there are some policies which stop us from running properly. Because of this, the support level is also not that strong. We have to wait to get a results."
"There are some third-party solutions that are difficult to integrate with, which is something that can be improved."
"The server sometimes stops continuously to check things so it would be helpful to receive access updates or technical reasons."
"A better pricing plan would make this product more competitive."
"As an improvement, I would like to see enhanced connection speeds."
"The playbooks could be improved to include more functionalities or actions."
"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."
"The solution's security awareness training and phishing are very United States-focused and don't work very well in Australia."
"Varonis Platform could be improved because when I used it, we had a significant issue related to the large volume of data on that file share."
"It would be beneficial if the reporting in Varonis Platform could use PDFs instead of Excel for better graphs, as the dashboards are really good, and it would be nice to have simplified dashboards in PDF for business reporting purposes."
"The product is very complicated."
"I would like it to have cloud integration."
"It is significantly complex."
"I'd like to see automatic updates for this solution. Currently, it's a manual process to update all the keywords."
"The troubleshooting capabilities could be improved. It has so many interconnected components."
"While Varonis Platform is powerful, the initial data scanning and indexing can take significant time in large environments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing seems fair, and I do like the licensing model. You use wherever they are, and it is elastic."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"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."
"We pay about $50,000 USD per year for a bundle that includes Cortex XDR."
"The pricing is a little high. It is per user per year."
"Its pricing is kind of in line with its competitors and everybody else out there."
"Our customers have expressed that the price is high."
"The return on investment is from the user side because we have seen the performance of it increase the delivery time of the product if we are using too many web-based and on-premise applications. In indirect ways, we saw the return of investment in terms of performance and user satisfaction increase."
"I like Guardz's pricing model because it's very cost-effective and has no long-term commitments."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise57
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
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What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?
Varonis Platform could be improved because when I used it, we had a significant issue related to the large volume of ...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
My main use case for Varonis Platform is to monitor access to sensitive data across file shares, Microsoft 365, and S...
What advice do you have for others considering Varonis Platform?
Varonis Platform receives a rating of seven out of ten. I chose seven out of ten because the user experience was easy...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
Nottingham Building Society
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