Who is Palantir's biggest competitor?

Both Leidos and CACI offer similar data analytics solutions and are much larger than Palantir.

What is similar to Palantir stock?

From a high-growth, analytics standpoint, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) and Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) are similar to Palantir.

Is Elon Musk affiliated with Palantir?

Elon Musk's xAI announced a strategic partnership with Palantir in May 2025. The partnership plans to develop AI solutions for the financial services industry.

What is the ticker for Palantir?

Palantir is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "PLTR."

Palantir Competitors: How PLTR Stacks Up Against the Defense Industry

Palantir (PLTR) Competitors: Defense Alternatives

By Frank Bass – Updated Apr 27, 2026 at 3:41 PM EST | Fact-checked by Margo Winton Parodi

Key Points

Palantir's reliance on government contracts and high P/E ratio raise concerns.
Competitors like Leidos and CACI erode Palantir's market dominance in AI analytics.
Investor skepticism grows as Palantir must double earnings rapidly to justify P/E.

Defense stocks that incorporate AI into their products have been on a roll, but a combination of factors at one of the most prominent companies has investors searching for Palantir (PLTR -1.29%) competitors. Known as a top-tier leader in AI-powered data analytics for defense and large enterprise operations, Palantir posted explosive revenue growth over the last year.

We'll look at why some investors are skeptical of the company's short-term prospects and consider Palantir alternatives.

NASDAQ: PLTR

Palantir Technologies

Today's Change

(-1.31%) $-1.78

Current Price

$134.13

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$325B

Day's Range

$131.17 - $135.70

52wk Range

$107.00 - $207.52

Volume

900K

Avg Vol

50M

Gross Margin

84.07%

Loading paragraph...

NYSE: LDOS

Leidos

Today's Change

(-2.28%) $-3.13

Current Price

$134.06

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$17B

Day's Range

$129.74 - $136.53

52wk Range

$129.74 - $205.77

Volume

331K

Avg Vol

1.1M

Gross Margin

18.04%

Dividend Yield

1.21%

Like most defense contractors, Leidos is considerably larger than Palantir. It reported $17.2 billion in revenue in 2025, a 3% year-over-year increase. About $15 billion, or 87% of its annual revenues, comes from the federal government.

CACI International

CACI (CACI -0.61%) focuses on developing tools for cyber warfare, electronic intelligence, and battlefield awareness. Its systems allow the military and intelligence communities to track enemy communications, detect threats, and help analysts make sense of complex intelligence streams.

Loading paragraph...

NYSE: CACI

CACI International

Today's Change

(-0.61%) $-3.04

Current Price

$491.00

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$11B

Day's Range

$476.47 - $492.25

52wk Range

$409.62 - $683.50

Volume

4.5K

Avg Vol

279K

Gross Margin

30.13%

Both Palantir and CACI analyze large volumes of classified data. CACI, however, typically builds specialized tools for specific missions rather than creating a single unified platform for its government clients.

CACI produced $8.6 billion in revenue in 2025, a 13% year-over-year increase. Virtually all of its revenue comes from the federal government. For the quarter ending March 31, 2026, the company reported a backlog of $33.4 billion, a 6.4% year-over-year increase.

Booz Allen Hamilton

Booz Allen (BAH +0.07%) doesn't sell a single product to the Pentagon or intelligence community; instead, it serves as a consultant, helping design, build, and deploy analytics and AI tools that can be similar to Palantir's products.

While it's often a competitor, Booz Allen's relationship with Palantir illustrates the often-blurred lines between competitors and partners in the defense industry. The two companies announced a partnership in December 2024 to provide AI-driven, data-centric, battlefield-driven technology to the U.S. government and allied militaries.

Loading paragraph...

NYSE: BAH

Booz Allen Hamilton

Today's Change

(0.16%) $0.12

Current Price

$76.38

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$9.2B

Day's Range

$74.20 - $76.65

52wk Range

$73.93 - $130.91

Volume

13K

Avg Vol

1.9M

Gross Margin

20.94%

Dividend Yield

2.94%

The company expects to post at least $11.3 billion in revenue during its current fiscal year. Like other major contractors, Booz Allen receives almost all of its revenue from the federal government.

RTX Corporation

RTX (RTX +2.64%), the product of a 2020 merger of Raytheon and United Technologies, is best known for its missiles, radar systems, and sensors. However, the company is beginning to incorporate AI into its systems, enabling it to analyze data, identify threats, and respond autonomously.

Unlike Palantir, RTX doesn't market a standalone data platform. Instead, the contractor competes indirectly by integrating analytics and AI into an entire defense system. As a result, customers may choose a product with RTX's existing capabilities over one that relies on Palantir's separate software.

Loading paragraph...

NYSE: RTX

RTX

Today's Change

(2.59%) $4.48

Current Price

$177.35

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$233B

Day's Range

$173.65 - $177.51

52wk Range

$126.03 - $214.50

Volume

62K

Avg Vol

5.7M

Gross Margin

20.21%

Dividend Yield

1.57%

RTX is one of the nation's largest federal contractors. It reported $22.1 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2026, a 9% year-over-year increase. The company expects to record at least $92.5 billion in revenue for the year, driven by strong defense spending and a record backlog of $271 billion.

Northrop Grumman

Like RTX, Northrop Grumman (NOC +0.10%) is better known for its hardware, which includes stealth bombers, missile defense networks, and space platforms. Its latest iterations of these products use software to combine and analyze data from multiple sources, similar to Palantir but embedded in hardware. And like RTX, Northrop integrates AI and analytics into large programs rather than providing a standalone platform.

Northrop reported Q1 2026 revenue of $9.9 billion, a 4% year-over-year increase. Like RTX, Northrop expects to benefit from Pentagon efforts to rebuild weapons stockpiles as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine drain inventories. The company projects annual revenues to reach at least $43.5 billion in 2026, a 3.6% increase from the previous year.

Loading paragraph...

NYSE: NOC

Northrop Grumman

Today's Change

(0.18%) $1.00

Current Price

$559.60

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$79B

Day's Range

$551.31 - $560.00

52wk Range

$453.01 - $774.00

Volume

5.7K

Avg Vol

834K

Gross Margin

20.52%

Dividend Yield

1.65%

Loading paragraph...

FAQs

Palantir's competitors: FAQ

About the Author

Frank Bass is a contributing Motley Fool stock market analyst and editor covering energy, healthcare, consumer, and financial sectors. Frank has decades of experience in financial journalism, holding reporting and editing roles at The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, and Bloomberg. He also currently edits research on the global energy transition. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Texas Tech University and is a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Fun Facts: Frank has hiked The Long Trail in Vermont from end to end, and currently lives in a semi-dry cabin in Interior Alaska.

TMFEditFool

Palantir's biggest obstacle may be its success. Given the company's trailing P/E ratio of more than 230, there's little doubt Palantir's stock is overvalued. Its market cap has topped $300 billion even as its revenue has barely exceeded $4 billion. Given that price-to-sales figure, years of rapid growth have already been priced into the stock; profitable software companies generally trade at P/S ratios of roughly 10.

There's also the question of Palantir's ability to scale its business. Is it a platform or software? Companies like Microsoft (MSFT +0.93%) have grown efficiently by developing platforms that enable customers to quickly and easily deploy their products. Meanwhile, Palantir is growing by sending dedicated engineers to develop highly individualized solutions, which may make scaling the business more difficult.

Palantir investors are also beginning to do some longer-range forecasting, which may explain why Palantir shares in April 2026 slid 35% from their previous high. If the company reduces its P/E ratio to a more reasonable 30 or 40, it will need to double earnings in 2026 and 2027, and almost double them again in 2028. In other words, investors who buy the stock in early 2026 will be making an advance payment on three years of growth.

That's the bad news for the company. The good news is that AI continues to drive much of the economy. During the first nine months of 2025, AI and related investments accounted for 37% of real U.S. GDP growth. Real GDP for the period was measured at 2.1%, but would have been only 1.5% without accounting for AI developments -- not a small number in a $32 trillion U.S. economy.

The company is also likely to continue benefiting from its political connections with the Trump administration. Thiel and Karp, two of the more prominent co-founders of Palantir, emerged as early supporters of President Trump, who, in turn, has praised the company on his social media platform. Palantir's work has won special kudos from the administration for developing technology used in an immigration crackdown.

Finally, even if an AI bubble rapidly deflates, the company's expertise and origins in data analytics suggest that Palantir will remain a major contractor for the U.S. government. Contracts with the federal government account for more than half of the company's revenue; Palantir reported fourth quarter 2025 revenue from contracts jumped 66% from the previous fourth quarter.

Palantir (PLTR) Competitors: Defense Alternatives

Key Points

NASDAQ: PLTR

Key Data Points

NYSE: LDOS

Key Data Points

CACI International

NYSE: CACI

Key Data Points

Booz Allen Hamilton

NYSE: BAH

Key Data Points

RTX Corporation

NYSE: RTX

Key Data Points

Northrop Grumman

NYSE: NOC

Key Data Points

Related investing topics

Best Defense Stocks to Buy in 2026 and How to Invest in Them

6 Best Defense ETFs to Buy in 2026

Best AI Stocks to Buy in 2026 and How to Invest in Them

10 Companies Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Meaningful Ways

FAQs

Palantir's competitors: FAQ

Who is Palantir's biggest competitor?

Who is Palantir's biggest competitor?

What is similar to Palantir stock?

What is similar to Palantir stock?

Is Elon Musk affiliated with Palantir?

Is Elon Musk affiliated with Palantir?

What is the ticker for Palantir?

What is the ticker for Palantir?

About the Author

Read Next

Stocks Mentioned

Premium Investing Services

CACI International

Booz Allen Hamilton

RTX Corporation

Northrop Grumman

Palantir's competitive advantages

The future of Palantir's market share

Palantir (PLTR) overview

Palantir's top competitors

Leidos Holdings