We compared Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and Darktrace based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks seems to be the superior solution. Our reviewers feel that because Darktrace is lacking where security is concerned, Cortex XDR is a better investment.
"The most valuable feature is the analysis, because of the beta structure."
"The price is low and quite competitive with others."
"It notifies us if there's any suspicious file on any PC. If any execution or similar kind of thing is happening, it just alerts us. It doesn't only alert. It also blocks the execution until we allow it. We check whether the execution is legitimate or not, and then approve it or keep it blocked. This gives us a little bit of control over this mechanism. Fortinet FortiEDR is also very straightforward and easy to maintain."
"It is very easy to set up. I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, with ten being very easy to set up."
"The main thing is that I feel safe. Because the processes that have been used to get a handle on the attackers are much better than other competitors"
"The features that I have found most valuable are the ability to customize it and to reduce its size. It lets you run in a very small window in terms of memory and resources on legacy cash registers."
"I like FortiClient EMS. FortiEDR has a lot of great features like lockdown mode, remote wipes, and encryption. I can set malware outbreak policies and controls for detecting abnormalities. You can also simulate phishing attacks."
"he solution is an anti-malware product that integrates well with other vendor products such as firewalls, SIEM, etc. It captures threat intelligence and gives you better visibility. The product also has sandboxing features."
"The multi-layered approach to the product gives you confidence that it will stop exploits, ransomware, worms, or viruses from compromising endpoints, essentially providing peace of mind."
"The most valuable for us is the correlation feature."
"One thing that I like about Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, it is detecting all the suspicious or malicious binaries, and it has integration with Palo Alto Firewall."
"Traps has drastically reduced our endpoint attack surface via advanced detection capabilities, sandboxing of never before seen programs, and by drastically limiting where executables can launch in the first place."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"Cortex XDR is a simple platform that's easy for administrators and users. You have a lot of flexibility to change or customize the features."
"The protection offered by this product is good, as is the endpoint reporting."
"It's very stable. I've never experienced downtime for the ASM console or ASM core."
"I find the complete portfolio to be excellent."
"We liked their approach to identifying intrusions or network anomalies using AI."
"Darktrace is very useful for us because it has a large number of models for detecting threats."
"It is a stable solution without downtime."
"It is very easy to work with Darktrace once you know how it works and the type of permissions that you need to get related to the security over a network. The interface is awesome. I'm sure that you have seen Ironman, and you know Jarvis, the computer of Tony Stark. The interface of Darktrace is very similar, and you can see in 3D, like a hologram, the whole network, traffic, and all the traces inside the network. The interface is awesome, and it provides a lot of information. At least for us, it is very easy to handle this interface, get the reports, and do the interpretation of those reports. Darktrace also provides mobile monitoring. With an app on your mobile phone, you can view the information live, which is very useful for area directors and field engineers. Darktrace can be also correlated with any type of big data solution, such as Splunk."
"The Antigena feature is most valuable. Once it learns your environment, Antigena can step in and block a denial of service attack, a ransomware attack, or just about anything that doesn't belong in the environment. It can detect any type of attack that hits the environment because it understands what normal looks like for the network. It is very useful for an autonomous response."
"I find it very good in the way that they show the past events, including the attack history."
"One member of staff is enough for deployment and maintenance because Darkforce is AI-driven. It does a lot of things by itself."
"Everything with Fortinet having to do with their cloud services. They need to invest more in their internal infrastructure that they are running in the cloud. One of the things I find with their cloud environment compared to others' is that they go cheap on the equipment. So it causes some performance degradation."
"FortiEDR could add a separate scanning dashboard. In incident management, we prefer to remove the endpoint system from the environment and scan the system. We typically use Symantec for that, but if we want to use FortiEDR for that, then we need a scanning tab to clarify things."
"Integration with Azure and SaaS provisioning tools could improve Fortinet FortiEDR."
"The support needs improvement."
"The solution's installation from a central installation server could be improved because the engineers had a little bit of trouble getting it installed from a central location."
"There's room for improvement in the quick response time and technical support for integration issues, especially when dealing with multiple vendors."
"We'd like to see more one-to-one product presentations for the distribution channels."
"The EDR console should have more extensive reporting. You shouldn't need to purchase FortiAnalyzer. It should be included in the EDR part. The security adviser cloud platform could be improved with more options for exclusive or intensive rules for devices."
"I would like to see some additional features related to email protection included."
"The solution can never really be an on-premises solution based simply on the way it is set up. It needs metadata to run and improve. Having an on-premises solution would cut it off from making improvements."
"The GUI could be improved."
"Being able to filter the events to see those that are related to the actual alert would save time spent by the engineer."
"When it comes to core analysis, and security analysis, Cortex needs to provide more information."
"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."
"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."
"Although I would say this product is highly-rated, it could probably do more because nothing does everything that you want."
"The interface and dashboards could be improved for ease-of-use."
"I would like to see a feature where the tool ingests information from an anti-malware product that is present at the endpoint."
"The module can improve so that every time it's more intelligent."
"They just need to make it a little bit more accurate as far as their alerts are concerned. It does generate some false positives that you have to tune. You have to do a lot of tuning when you first get it because of the false positives, but once it is all tuned up and ready to go, it will do its thing from there."
"The pricing is a bit high for the region."
"In an upcoming release, there could be more customizable playbooks or a library of playbooks to choose from."
"The main portal needs improvement as it is difficult to use."
"In the next version, I'd like to see penetration testing."
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Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 4th in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) with 80 reviews while Darktrace is ranked 11th in Email Security with 65 reviews. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4, while Darktrace is rated 8.2. 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 Darktrace writes "Great autonomous support, offers an easy setup, and has responsive support". Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, Symantec Endpoint Security, Trend Micro Apex One and Check Point Harmony Endpoint, whereas Darktrace is most compared with CrowdStrike Falcon, Vectra AI, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, Cisco Secure Network Analytics and ExtraHop Reveal(x).
We monitor all Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.