Looking at both for 500+ endpoints across AWS, Azure, and GCP. The feature sheets look similar, but the real cost never is.
* Palo Alto's "platform" tax is real. How much of the quoted price is for the XDR name vs. actual detection? Their per-GB cloud ingestion fees for extended data look punitive.
* GravityZone's per-endpoint pricing seems cleaner, but what's the catch? Their "advanced" threat controls—are those extra SKUs? Heard the cloud console can be its own cost center if you're not careful.
Main question: For a shop that just needs solid EDR and workload protection without the bloat, which one actually delivers on TCO?
* Any hidden commit levels?
* Do both charge extra for cloud instance scanning, or is it truly covered in the endpoint count?
* What's the real penalty for scaling down? Heard Cortex has nasty cancellation clauses.
always ask for a multi-year discount