Arista NDR vs Cisco Secure Network Analytics comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Arista NDR and Cisco Secure Network Analytics 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 Arista NDR vs. Cisco Secure Network Analytics Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The query language makes it easy to query the records on the network, to do searches for the various threat activities that we're looking for. The dashboard, the Security Knowledge Graph, displays information meaningfully and easily. I am able to find the information that I want to find pretty quickly.""The security knowledge graph has been very helpful in the sense that whenever you try a new security solution, especially one that's in the detection and response market, you're always worried about getting a lot of false positives or getting too many alerts and not being able to pick out the good from the bad or things that are actual security incidents versus normal day to day operations. We've been pleasantly surprised that Awake does a really good job of only alerting about things that we actually want to look into and understand. They do a good job of understanding normal operations out-of-the-box.""This solution’s encrypted traffic analysis helps us stay in compliance with government regulations. It is all about understanding data exfiltration, what is ingressing and egressing in our network. One common attack vector is exfiltrating data using encryption. My capabilities to see potential data exfiltration over encrypted traffic is second to none now.""It gives us something that is almost like an auditing tool for all of our network controls, to see how they are performing. This is related to compliance so that we can see how we are doing with what we have already implemented. There are things that we implemented, but we really didn't know if they were working or not. We have that visibility now.""When I create a workbench query in Awake to do threat hunting, it's much easier to query. You get a dictionary popup immediately when you try to type a new query. It says, "You want to search for a device?" Then you type in "D-E," and it gives you a list of commands, like device, data set behavior, etc. That gives you the ability to build your own query.""This solution help us monitor devices used on our network by insiders, contractors, partners, or suppliers. Its correlation and identification of specific endpoints is very good, especially since we have a large, virtualized environment. It discerns this fairly well. Some of the issues that we have had with other tools is we sometimes are not able to tell the difference between users on some of those virtualized instances.""Arista NDR's scalability is very good, making it easy to add more hardware components. You can order additional hardware and integrate it by stacking it with the existing setup. This feature cannot be seen in other NDR tools.""The most valuable feature is the ability to see suspicious activity for devices inside my network. It helps me to quickly identify that activity and do analysis to see if it's expected or I need to mitigate that activity quickly."

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"The most valuable feature about this solution is that it gives me insight of my network.""It does change the way we troubleshoot and it is relatively easy to use once you learn it. I would recommend it to someone considering it.""The fact that it can identify down to an IP address of a system that is causing problems, or potentially causing problems, is very valuable.""We find that Stealthwatch can detect the unseen.""I believe this solution has reduced our incident response time.""I value the feature which enables me to detect devices talking to suspect IPs.""Stealthwatch has greatly improved our network visibility, in terms of bandwidth, malware, and PCI violations.""There are already many functionalities, so I don't think there is anything to improve."

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Cons
"I would like to see the capability to import what's known as STIX/TAXII in an IOC format. It currently doesn't offer this.""Be prepared to update your SOPs to have your analysts work in another tool separately. There are some limitations in the integrations right now. One of the things that I want from a security standpoint is integration with multiple tools so I don't need to have my analysts logging into each individual tool.""Arista NDR needs to open legal offices to be closer to customers and partners. It needs more visibility in the NDR market in the Middle East. While they are doing well, they lack sufficient engineers. They need to hire more engineers to meet the demand and expand their presence. The current team is good but not enough to fully capture the market.""One concern I do have with Awake is that, ideally, it should be able identify high-risk users and devices and entities. However, we don't have confidence in their entity resolution, and we've provided this feedback to Awake. My understanding is that this is where some of the AI/ML is, and it hasn't been reliable in correctly identifying which device an activity is associated with. We have also encountered issues where it has merged two devices into one entity profile when they shouldn't be merged. The entity resolution is the weakest point of Awake so far.""The one thing that the Awake platform lacks is the ability to automate the ingestion of IOCs rather than having to import CSV files or JSON files manually.""I would like to see a bit more in terms of encrypted traffic. With the advent of programs that live off the land, a smart attacker is going to leverage encryption to execute their operation. So I would like to see improvements there, where possible. Currently, we're not going to be decrypting encrypted traffic. What other approaches could be used?""They've been focused on really developing their data science, their ability to detect, but over time, they need to be able to tie into other systems because other systems might detect something that they don't.""While the appliance is very good, and I think they're working on it, it would probably help if they integrated the management team cases into the appliance so that everything we are working on with them would be accessible on our platform, on the dashboard, on the portal. Right now, Awake is just an additional team that uses the appliance that we use and then we communicate with them directly. Communication isn't through the portal."

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"They should include Citrix VDIs in the next release.""I would like to see more and cleaner reporting. For example, if I pull up Steven and I want to look and maybe compare him to what you've done in the past week, and compare that to the past six months, the point would be to see what the difference in activity looks like over this time. I don't see that capability in reporting to date. You see that trend but you don't really see a straightforward comparison. That right there is key to what we want to see about the normal activity.""We are continuing down the road of ACI and ISE with Cisco, so we would like to see the continuation of Stealthwatch integrating into ISE for exchange of information, and also, more into the ACI environment too.""Cisco Stealthwatch needs more integration with device discovery. We have to do a lot of hard work to figure out what things are. Better service integration is required.""Initially, I felt Cisco Secure Network Analytics lacked integration with Splunk.""The configuration of the solution was quite complex.""One thing I would like to see improved is if it could automatically be tied through ISE, instead of you having to manually get notifications and disable it yourself.""Its granularity for RBAC roles-based access control needs improvement."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The solution has saved thousands of dollars within the first day. Our ROI has to be in the tens of thousands of dollars since October last year."
  • "Awake Security was the least expensive among their competitors. Everyone was within $15,000 of each other. The other solutions were not providing the MNDR service, which is standard with Awake Security's pricing/licensing model."
  • "We switched to Awake Security because they were able to offer a model that was significantly less expensive and the value that we get out of it is higher."
  • "The solution is very good and the pricing is also better than others..."
  • "The pricing seems pretty reasonable for what we get out of it. We also found it to be more competitive than some other vendors that we've looked at."
  • "Awake's pricing was very competitive. It's not a cheap option though. It's an investment to utilize it, but it's one that we decided was worth the cost, with the managed services. At our scale, it was a much better option to utilize their software and their managed services to handle this, rather than hiring another person to be an analyst. It was quite cost-effective for us."
  • "Because I represent a hedge fund, I have some leverage. I told them that they had to meet my conditions if they wanted me as a client. It was the same way with Awake. They wanted an initial four-year agreement. Initially, we signed on for a one-year contract, but they wanted the four-year deal when it came time for the renewal. I told them that I was not doing that. I said that they either had to do it on my terms, or I'd go somewhere else."
  • More Arista NDR Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It is worth the cost."
  • "Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside>in traffic."
  • "Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
  • "​Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside (in traffic)."
  • "Today, we are part of the big Cisco ELA, and it is a la carte. We can get orders for whatever we want. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it in one big expense, but that is fine. We are okay with that."
  • "NetFlow is very expensive."
  • "One of the things which bugs me about Lancope is the licensing. We understand how licensing works. Our problem is when we bought and purchased most of these Lancope devices, we did so with our sister company. Somewhere within the purchase and distribution, licensing got mixed up. That is all on Cisco, and it is their responsibility. They allotted some of our sister company's equipment to us, and some of our equipment to them. To date, they have never been able to fix it."
  • "The licensing costs are outrageous."
  • More Cisco Secure Network Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Arista NDR's scalability is very good, making it easy to add more hardware components. You can order additional hardware and integrate it by stacking it with the existing setup. This feature cannot be… more »
    Top Answer:The tool's pricing is expensive but it is competitive.
    Top Answer:Arista NDR needs to open legal offices to be closer to customers and partners. It needs more visibility in the NDR market in the Middle East. While they are doing well, they lack sufficient engineers… more »
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is the Threat Intelligence integration.
    Top Answer:I would rate Cisco SNA as a nine out of ten in terms of costliness.
    Top Answer:Initially, I felt Cisco Secure Network Analytics lacked integration with Splunk. However, with Cisco's recent acquisition of Splunk, it seems this gap will be addressed. If this integration happens… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    2,230
    Comparisons
    1,293
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    392
    Rating
    9.0
    Views
    4,668
    Comparisons
    3,637
    Reviews
    8
    Average Words per Review
    528
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Awake Security Platform
    Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
    Learn More
    Cisco
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    Overview

    Arista NDR (formerly Awake Security) is the only advanced network detection and response company that delivers answers, not alerts. By combining artificial intelligence with human expertise, Arista NDR hunts for both insider and external attacker behaviors, while providing autonomous triage and response with full forensics across traditional, IoT, and cloud networks. Arista NDR delivers continuous diagnostics for the entire enterprise threat landscape, processes countless network data points, senses abnormalities or threats, and reacts if necessary—all in a matter of seconds. The Arista NDP platform stands out from traditional security because it is designed to mimic the human brain. It recognizes malicious intent and learns over time, giving defenders greater visibility and insight into what threats exist and how to respond to them. 

    The Advent of Advanced Network Detection and Response & Why it Matters

    The 5 Levels of Autonomous Security paper

    Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a highly effective network traffic analysis (NTA) solution that enables users to find threats in their network traffic even if those threats are encrypted. It turns an organization’s network telemetry into a tool that creates a complete field of vision for the organization’s administrators. Users can find threats that may have infiltrated their systems and stop them before they can do irreparable harm.

    Cisco Secure Network Analytics Benefits

    A few ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Cisco Secure Network Analytics include:

    • Security scaling. Secure Network Analytics makes it easy for organizations to scale up their level of network protection to match the growth that their business is experiencing. It can be deployed on whatever type of system is necessary. Users will have their growth needs met at every stage of their business journey because the solution offers users the ability to use it on-premises or in the cloud and it can be consumed as a SaaS-based or license-based solution. Whenever any kind of device is added, Secure Network Analytics can automatically classify that device so that it is seamlessly integrated into its network protection system.
    • Detects threats as they appear. Users gain the ability to scan their network traffic for even the most advanced threats at all times. Secure Network Analytics easily identifies the early warning signs that are typically initiated before attacks are conducted by bad actors. Once these signs are found, users are warned so that they can take steps to prevent those threats from escalating. This also enables users to determine the source of the threat and whether it might have spread further than initially thought.
    • Eliminate blind spots. Organizations that use Secure Network Analytics can view their network traffic across both private networks and public cloud environments. The scanning power of the solution allows users to gain complete visibility with a fewer number of sensors than their competitors require to achieve a similar level of protection.

    Cisco Secure Network Analytics Features

    Some of the many features that Cisco Secure Network Analytics offers include:

    • Centralized security management. Secure Network Analytics’ Identity Services Engine feature enables users to control their network from a single graphical user interface. Administrators can simplify their jobs by controlling profiler, posture, guest, authentication, and authorization services from a single pane of glass.
    • Machine learning tools. Secure Network Analytics uses machine learning to generate alerts when malicious or suspicious activity is detected. It also analyzes the threat so that users gain insight into the nature of the dangers that confront them. Additionally, it examines the threats to determine whether they are actual threats or false alarms. This significantly reduces the number of false alarms that administrators have to spend time attempting to resolve.
    • Automation. Users can automate routine tasks that users would otherwise have to handle manually. This automation feature frees administrators and employees to handle other more critical tasks.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a solution that stands out even when compared to many other comparable products. Two major advantages that it offers are the way that it enables users to define the threshold at which the solution will issue a warning to administrators and the predefined alerts that it offers straight out of the box.

    Gerald J., the information technology operations supervisor at Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc., writes, “StealthWatch lets me see the ports running in and out and the country. It has excellent reporting, telemetry, and artificial intelligence features. With the telemetry, I can set thresholds to detect sudden changes and the alarms go through the PLC parts. I can see all the ports running on that trunk.”

    A senior security engineer at a tech services company, says, “Cisco Stealthwatch has predefined alerts for different types of security issues that might happen in the network. Whether it's PCs or servers that are used for botnets or Bitcoin mining we receive the alerts automatically. This functionality is what we receive from the solution out of the box.”

    Offer
    Identify hidden network threats


    Your network may have security risks that you don't know about. Schedule a live demo to see how you can use Awake Security to identify and mitigate these threats.

    Learn more about Cisco Secure Network Analytics
    Sample Customers
    - Dolby Laboratories- Seattle Genetics- ARM Energy- Ooma- Prophix- Yapstone
    Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Insurance Company18%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Legal Firm9%
    Engineering Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Educational Organization8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company23%
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Government7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company27%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise54%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise63%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise76%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise73%
    Buyer's Guide
    Arista NDR vs. Cisco Secure Network Analytics
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Arista NDR vs. Cisco Secure Network Analytics and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Arista NDR is ranked 8th in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) with 14 reviews while Cisco Secure Network Analytics is ranked 4th in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) with 57 reviews. Arista NDR is rated 9.0, while Cisco Secure Network Analytics is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Arista NDR writes "Gives us network layer visibility into things that may not be covered by other monitoring tools, such as shadow IT". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Secure Network Analytics writes "Increased the visibility of what is happening in our network". Arista NDR is most compared with Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention, Vectra AI, Trend Micro Deep Discovery, Darktrace and ExtraHop Reveal(x), whereas Cisco Secure Network Analytics is most compared with Darktrace, Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, ThousandEyes, Vectra AI and Cisco Cognitive Threat Analytics. See our Arista NDR vs. Cisco Secure Network Analytics report.

    See our list of best Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) vendors and best Network Detection and Response (NDR) vendors.

    We monitor all Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) 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.