We performed a comparison between Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and SentinelOne based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products receive high marks from reviewers. However, SentinelOne comes out on top in this comparison due to its impressive security and EDR features, attractive price, and impressive ROI.
"Many people don't realize that Microsoft Azure, Exchange Online, and the security and compliance portal all sync together. For instance, within the Azure portal you can set security restrictions and policies to help secure your tenants... The good part of it is that these products have already been integrated. When you sign on as an admin you have global admin rights and that gives you access to all these features."
"The unified view of the threat landscape on a central dashboard is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of all is the full integration with the rest of the software in the operating system and Office 365, as well as Microsoft SCCM. It is quite easy for us to work with the whole instance of Microsoft products. This integration improves the benefits of the whole suite of products."
"The integration, visibility, vulnerability management, and device identification are valuable."
"The attack simulation is excellent; initially, this feature wasn't very robust, but Microsoft improved what we could achieve with it. We can now customize our practice phishing emails and include our company logo, for example. Attack simulation also helps integrate with third-party solutions where applicable and provides an overview of our security architecture through testing. The summary includes areas for improvement in our protection and what steps we need to take to get there."
"I like that it's fully integrated with Windows, Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, and Outlook. It is better than other antivirus solutions because it's fully integrated with all Microsoft products. It's easy to integrate them and onboard all Windows devices from SCCM."
"I like that it's stable. It's been stable for a long time, and Microsoft Defender has done a good job there."
"The integration with other Microsoft solutions is the most valuable feature."
"I like the centralized console and the predictive analysis it does of malware. It is very stable and also scalable."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks should be a stable solution."
"The product has an intuitive dashboard."
"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."
"Palo Alto is constantly adding new features."
"One of the things that I enjoy the most is using policy extensions. It's like having host firewalls to control USB connections. I think it's a wonderful tool to restrict use when connecting to our computers. Another important tool is Home Insights. That is an add-on to the Cortex solution. I like that because we can see all the vulnerabilities in the environment and control what assets are connected to our network."
"Provides behavior-based detection which offers many benefits over signature-based detection."
"The information the dashboard provides is very clear."
"In incidents, SentinelOne's remediation is excellent; we can immediately see if the threat type is dynamic or static."
"Singularity has the same features as other antivirus products, but it provides an added layer of security and vulnerability protection. It's also light on resources. Singularity doesn't use a lot of CPU or memory."
"All of the features are valuable. The way that it integrates into management with fault correction capabilities over is especially valuable. Any of the full gamut of the features that it provides are useful to us."
"The most valuable aspect, in any scenario, was the rollback feature."
"The autonomous platform is valuable because we can separate false positives and negatives."
"It is easy to manage and install. It has a very nice graphical interface that is very intuitive when end users are using it. You don't have to follow or read a book about 600 pages to have knowledge on how to use it. When SentinelOne is up and running, you can easily find your way."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to drill down into individual sequences of processes."
"We are able to write some custom rules on SentinelOne."
"When discussing the secure score, which includes overviews and recommended actions, some of these recommended actions are not applicable to us, particularly those related to Microsoft Internet Explorer, which we do not use in any of our environments."
"The solution could improve by having better machine learning and AI. Additionally, the interface, documentation, and integration could be better."
"There is no common area where we can manage all the policies for the EDR, third-party solutions, devices, servers, Windows, Mac, etc., but it's on the road map, and we ware waiting for that feature."
"The data recovery and backup could be improved."
"At times, there may be delays in the execution of certain actions and their effects."
"One of the biggest downsides of Microsoft products, in general, is that the menus are often difficult to find, as they tend to move from place to place between versions."
"Generally, antivirus products provide a central control to manage every device in terms of who is installing it or who is trying to disable it, but Microsoft doesn't have such a control center for the antivirus product it provides."
"The advanced threat-hunting capabilities are phenomenal, and the security copilot enhances that, but some data elements could be better or have more context inside of the advanced tables themselves. The schemas feel a little limited to what they're building into the product. It's probably just a maturity thing. I imagine we'll see the features I want in the next year."
"Cortex XDR could be improved with more GUI features."
"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."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can improve mobile integration to allow access to the console."
"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."
"Currently, we are monitoring all USB drives and ports but we would like to improve our device control capabilities."
"The connection to the internet has not performed as expected."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management. It would be useful to look at the client's issue to fix it."
"Although I would say this product is highly-rated, it could probably do more because nothing does everything that you want."
"SentinelOne is making a lot of moves to acquire various companies, but the roadmap isn't clear, and it is still uncertain how the new acquisitions will integrate. For example, SentinelOne recently acquired a mobile security solution, but there is no real integration between the platforms."
"They should train their own people so that they can train us better. The theory is good."
"The stability of SentinelOne should be improved."
"The delay in updating inventory is ten minutes. If it can be improved, it will help a lot."
"They can improve the administrative interface. They can make it more user-friendly."
"In the beginning, we had some issues with their product on some of the Windows 32-bit operating systems."
"Periodically we have an application that does not work correctly when SentinelOne is installed, yet performs as expected when SentinelOne is removed."
"I would like to see something a little more sophisticated than simply being able to mark a false positive as safe or there's usually just one or two options in certain areas and they're a little rudimentary at this stage."
More Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 4th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 80 reviews while SentinelOne Singularity Complete is ranked 2nd in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 176 reviews. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4, while SentinelOne Singularity Complete is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks writes "Perfect correlation and XDR capabilities for network traffic plus endpoint security". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SentinelOne Singularity Complete writes "Provides peace of mind and is good at ingesting data and correlating". Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, Darktrace, Symantec Endpoint Security and Microsoft Defender for Cloud, whereas SentinelOne Singularity Complete is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, Darktrace, ThreatLocker Protect and Trend Vision One. See our Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs. SentinelOne Singularity Complete report.
See our list of best Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) vendors, best Extended Detection and Response (XDR) vendors, and best Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) vendors.
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I haven't used Cortex. My worry with it and every other solution is how well does it perform when disconnected from the cloud/ the internet?
S1 - I have been using it for a couple of years now without an issue. I had been using Cylance prior. I've been very happy with the S1 solution. Works with or without the Internet.
Depends on the size, scope and needs of your environment.
XDR is an ok monitoring/alerting tool, especially if you have a Palo Alto firewall already and everything can integrate well together. However, S1 is a superior tool IMHO and can catch and fix things automatically if you so choose (magic quadrant agrees).
Cost-wise XDR is probably cheaper but I don't know specifics on-prem vs cloud. S1 is a cloud tool but is extremely fast and responsive compared to some other tools we POC'd and can support legacy devices w2k8 and below or Linux or VDI without having to special of workarounds. So again, it depends on your needs, environment and cost.
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne
SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. The ability to reverse damage caused by ransomware with minimal interruptions to the environment is note-worthy. Sentinel One works inconspicuously in the background, continually providing protection. It has an automated active EDR that will not only find issues but can fix them. I don’t know that any other solution does that.
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto has a nice console and is easy to use. One of my favorite things about it is that it will automatically connect and log various kinds of suspicious behavior - you don’t need to do it manually. Cortex XDR is very secure but it is missing some basic features. It doesn’t offer an on-prem solution and it doesn’t integrate so well with some third-party solutions.
SentinelOne can be challenging to set up and there seem to be some applications that do not function properly when SentinelOne is installed. I would like to be able to make the reporting more specific to my needs. It would be a more attractive option if the cost was lower.
Conclusions
The find-and-fix option that SentinalOne provides was a huge win for us. We feel it provides a deeper and more thorough level of security.