Plixer Scrutinizer vs Vectra AI comparison

The compared Plixer and Vectra AI solutions aren't in the same category. Plixer is ranked #12 in NTA , and holds a 3.6% mindshare in the category. Vectra AI is ranked #2 in NDaR , with an average rating of 8.1, and holds a 13.3% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Plixer users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Vectra AI users who would recommend it.

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

1,610 Views
451 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Vectra AI

Read 47 Vectra AI reviews

8,474 Views
5,423 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

Vectra AI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Plixer Scrutinizer and Vectra AI based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Plixer Scrutinizer vs. Vectra AI Report (Updated: May 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer vs. Vectra AI

May 2024

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Helped 880,901 peers since 2012

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

Plixer Scrutinizer

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (75th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (12th)

Vectra AI

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (5th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (16th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (11th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)

Mindshare comparison

Plixer Scrutinizer and Vectra AI aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Plixer Scrutinizer is designed for Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) and holds a mindshare of 3.6%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
Vectra AI, on the other hand, focuses on Network Detection and Response (NDR), holds 13.3% mindshare, down 16.9% since last year.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Plixer Scrutinizer	3.6%
Darktrace	19.4%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics	11.5%
Other	65.5%

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Network Detection and Response (NDR) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Vectra AI	13.3%
Darktrace	18.0%
ExtraHop Reveal(x)	7.0%
Other	61.7%

Network Detection and Response (NDR)

Featured Reviews

Ira Mulyanti

Sales Director at ARGA SOLUSI

An affordable product with great integration capabilities

Plixer Core Platform is a valuable feature and a good software. Plixer Scrutinizer uses NetFlow analysis to monitor whatever is there in a network. Price-wise, Plixer Scrutinizer is not an expensive product. Basically, Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that can integrate with any other brand or product in the market, so it is not an area of concern.

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RahulReddy

Consultant at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees

Threat detection has improved and malicious emails are now identified quickly

Vectra AI offers artificial intelligence capabilities with visibility that can be integrated into our day-to-day operations and other tools, including malware detection tools and cyber threat tools. Vectra AI has positively impacted my organization. Last year while using it, we received many malicious email threats and virus incidents, including a trojan virus that had reportedly been deployed by someone. Our company used Vectra AI to detect the malicious threats and viruses before they could cause more damage, and we successfully stopped the threats. Using Vectra AI, I notice that server downtime has decreased significantly. We now experience only two to three hours of downtime, whereas without Vectra AI and other tools, our downtime would exceed 48 to 72 hours.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to view the status of the top-10 at a glance is helpful. We immediately know which link is over-utilized or heavily used... and it's all in real-time."

"We didn't experience any bugs."

"There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with."

"Visualization of the network traffic is the most valuable feature. It allows you to drill into information quite quickly."

"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."

"It's agnostic as far as what your network gear is. As long as it supports an sFlow, JFlow, NetFlow, some kind of flow monitoring, Plixer will support it very well."

"One feature I found most valuable in Plixer Scrutinizer is the very extensive reporting. Reporting is very flexible, though sometimes you need a little bit of support from Plixer Scrutinizer to create custom-made reporting in a very short time. Reporting is a very strong feature of the product."

"We have had many requests to understand in the network which devices are connected to others. Most people don't have this information or are able to establish a map of data flow everywhere around the network. Scrutinizer can really help with this. We are using it to understand who is talking to what, how, and which protocols can help us to improve security and analyze flow."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

"We often use the new feature to create PCAP files from the whole data traffic. It makes it much easier to find network problems such as whether the server is responding to a request. It has nothing to do with security, but it helps a lot to find other problems."

"We discovered a lot of things in our network and are correcting several misconfigurations. We are learning how some apps work together and how some things shouldn't happen. It's also easier for us to identify the source of a brute force, whereas before, we didn't even know we had a brute force."

"Vectra AI has positively impacted my organization; last year while using it, we received many malicious email threats and virus incidents, including a trojan virus that had reportedly been deployed by someone, and our company used Vectra AI to detect the malicious threats and viruses before they could cause more damage, and we successfully stopped the threats."

"The automatic filtering that they provide is valuable. The logic inside that makes some detections instead of us is very useful. We are confident that if we are just looking into it and there is nothing, nothing could happen."

"It has reduced the time it takes to respond to attacks. That comes back to the proactive point. It makes us able to lower down in the kill chain, we can react now, rather than reacting to incidents that happened, we can see an instant, in some cases, as it's being implemented, or as it's being launched."

"The fact that we get the visualization of what's happening on our network, which is a way of improving our security in-depth is most valuable."

"Our company used Vectra AI to detect the malicious threats and viruses before they could cause more damage, and we successfully stopped the threats."

"Vectra AI offers artificial intelligence capabilities with visibility that can be integrated into our day-to-day operations and other tools, including malware detection tools and cyber threat tools."

More Vectra AI pros

Cons

"Knowing that they're coming out with a new user interface, that is an area where there is room for improvement. There are so many variables. They should limit the variables in the user interface and create some classes, like "simple," "novice," and "expert" to narrow down the variables within it."

"Though Plixer Scrutinizer has network detection and response, it's an area that needs just a little more rounding out. Another room for improvement in the solution is its lack of SaaS offering which some customers were looking for. My company deals in small to medium businesses, mid-market, and some customers wanted the SaaS feature which Plixer Scrutinizer doesn't offer. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is for it to have a SaaS offering because my company also deals with educational spaces and smaller businesses that just don't have the staff that can implement this. If there's either a managed service or SaaS-based offering to just make it a little easier for those types of customers, it would be a great addition to Plixer Scrutinizer."

"The visual acuity of how it presents data can sometimes be confusing. It takes a bit for people to spin up how to look at the graphs."

"Data retention needs improvement. Data retention is a thing where we are looking for a better way to collect flow data for a longer time to do forensic research on security incidents. By default, data retention is quite low. We need detailed data in safe storage for a longer time, e.g., for a couple of months. An improvement would be a way to export data into a secure long-term storage."

"The reporting structure, the front-end GUI, also needs some work. It needs some getting used to. It works fairly well, but it's a technical tool rather than a user tool. You have to understand the structure of the databases before you can really use it."

"There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point."

"They're working on the security areas, so it can provide more insight. What they have is still pretty much IP-concentric. If they were to make it IP and URL, they'd be a little bit ahead on that."

"It would be useful if there was a way to back up the configuration information. E.g., if you wanted to deploy a new instance or disaster recovery, you could quite easily deploy and restore the config, as opposed to having to restore all the NetFlow data. If there was just a button that said "backup config information", that would be good."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

"A blind spot that I have is around the ease with which you can automate threat intervention."

"There could be an option where Vectra manages the solution remotely, and when there is an attack, there could be a notification center to give us information about the attack."

"Vectra AI could be improved by focusing on all threat types, not only malicious threats or virus threats."

"There is room for improvement in the documentation. We would like to have more details on how it detects what we see."

"I'd like to be able to get granular reports and to be able to output them into formats that are customizable and more useful. The reporting GUI is lacking."

"The false positives and the tuning side of it is something that could use improvement. But that could be from our side."

"The solution's marketing is not good."

"For S&D account scans, it would be easier if Vectra AI could triage with users. If a client uses a lot of accounts, then it could indicate that these accounts are benign, for example. That would help a lot."

More Vectra AI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive."

"The license is per device. We have 50 devices."

"We pay our one-off cost for the licenses, per device, in blocks of 50. And then we pay an annual maintenance fee of about $15,000 Australian, which is, at this point in time, about $9,000 US, for those 250 devices. The upfront costs for the 250-license use, were about $50,000 Australian, which is about $32,000 US."

"There is a recurring maintenance fee after the initial purchase or if we want the license upgrade."

"It's about €10,000 a year for initial license and yearly maintenance costs. In addition, the hardware costs are about €10,000 once every five years."

"Our entire solution, amortized over five years, is in the vicinity of $40,000 to $50,000 a year."

"The licensing cost for Plixer Scrutinizer is in the middle. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive. Its licensing model is based on how many exporters, how many devices export information to the system. Plixer Scrutinizer has different modules you could add such as the security module which would cost extra."

"We just renewed. The pricing is 5,000 euro per year. This is the final price. All tax (20 percent) is included."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

"Vectra AI's pricing is cheaper than that of Darktrace."

"Its cost is too much. It's an investment that we can afford. It's a lot, but it's worth it."

"Vectra's pricing is too high. All schools will not be able to afford it. Vectra will only end up targeting higher education and higher value independence purely because of the price. A lot of schools would love to have a product like Vectra AI, but they simply can't because they struggle to even pay the high E5 licensing from Microsoft. When you're up against that, Vectra AI is never going to be within the sector's price range."

"My company pays for the Vectra AI licensing fee yearly. I know the figure because my company recently renewed the license, and it's okay, at least for the financial sector."

"There are additional features that can be purchased in addition to the standard licensing fee, such as Cognito Recall and Stream."

"It's relatively on the pricier side, but when compared to other solutions. It's not the most budget-friendly option, but it can be considered somewhat more cost-effective in comparison to other alternatives."

"From a pricing perspective, they are very commercially competitive. From a licensing perspective, just be conscious that some of their future cloud solutions come with additional subscriptions. Also, if you're outside of the US, you will get charged freight for the device back to your country."

"The pricing and licensing are quite straightforward because they're based on the IP licenses. As a result, they are easy to count."

More Vectra AI pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

University

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	29

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?

The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the eventual forwarding of events and parsed data logs to a security team’s SIEM or ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Vectra AI?

The solution is currently used as a central threat detection and response system.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vectra AI?

It is very acceptable when you compare it with Darktrace, for example.

See all answers

Comparisons

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 15% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 14% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 13% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 12% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 9% of the time

More Plixer Scrutinizer Competitors

Darktrace vs Vectra AI

Compared 23% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Vectra AI

Compared 8% of the time

Corelight vs Vectra AI

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Vectra AI

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiNDR vs Vectra AI

Compared 4% of the time

More Vectra AI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

January 2026

Download Plixer Scrutinizer product report

Buyer's Guide

Vectra AI

December 2025

Download Vectra AI product report

Also Known As

No data available

Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR

Overview

The Scrutinizer incident response system leverages network traffic analytics to provide active monitoring, visualization, and reporting of network and security incidents. The system quickly delivers the rich forensic data needed by IT professionals to support fast and efficient incident response.

Plixer

Vectra AI offers advanced hybrid network and identity security, detecting threats traditional tools miss. It uses AI to identify lateral attacks and credential misuse, providing a proactive defense for enterprises.

Vectra AI enhances security by using AI-driven detection across network, cloud, and identity layers, surpassing EDR and SIEMs by offering real-time threat detection. It ensures continuous observability and automates SOC workflows to minimize manual efforts, creating an efficient security environment. Its AI-powered approach significantly reduces noise, focusing on true threats, and provides insights into complex threat landscapes, with seamless integration into environments like EDR and Office 365.

What are Vectra AI's key features?

AI-driven detection: Identifies lateral movement and credential misuse across networks.
Continuous observability: Monitors data centers, cloud, SaaS, and OT environments.
SOC automation: Reduces manual processes, lowering analyst fatigue.
Attack Signal Intelligence: Filters noise to deliver relevant alerts quickly.
Network visibility: Provides insight into encrypted traffic and unmanaged assets.

What benefits should users expect?

Improved threat detection: Faster identification of potential threats.
Efficiency in response: Automated processes free resources for high-impact tasks.
Reduced alert fatigue: Intelligent alerts reduce false positives.
Operational integration: Works seamlessly with existing platforms and tools.

Vectra AI is utilized across industries for comprehensive network and anomaly detection. Organizations deploy it for threat hunting and incident response, monitoring both on-premises and cloud activities. By placing sensors across sites, they optimize security practices and streamline their detection processes.

Vectra AI

Sample Customers

Oxford Networks, Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, UltiSat, Wipro, West Aurora School District 129, SUNY Geneseo College, Bloomington Public Schools, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Kitsap Credit Union, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Houston Texas, Carilion Clinic, Banner Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Goodwill Industries, Parmalat, Armstrong Coal Company, Flybe, James Walker

Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer vs. Vectra AI

May 2024

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