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Arista NDR vs Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Detection and Response (NDR) category, the mindshare of Arista NDR is 4.0%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 7.0%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 22.7%, down from 25.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Darktrace22.7%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics7.0%
Arista NDR4.0%
Other66.3%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1719513 - PeerSpot reviewer
it's much easier to create your own queries and hunt for threats
We take in IOCs from my SOC and from AlienVault, and then we focus on traffic that hits IOCs and alerts us to it. 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. Awake didn't support the manual importation of CSV and JSON in version 3.0, but they added it in version 4.0. It's helpful, but it still has to be a specific CSV format. Automated IOCs are on the roadmap. Hopefully, they will be able to automate the ingestion of IOCs by Q1 next year. I'm currently leveraging Mind Meld, an open-source tool by Palo Alto, to ingest IOCs from external parties. I aggregate those lists and spit them out as a massive list of domains, hashes, file names, IPS. Then we aggregate those into their own specific categories, like a URL category. Awake ingests that just like the Palo Alto firewall does, and then it alerts me if traffic attempts to go into it. Some of that is already on the Palo Alto firewall, which blocks it, but that doesn't mean that there is no attempted communication. I want to know if there's a communication attempt because there might be an indicator on that specific device trying to reach an IOC. Yes, my Palo Alto blocked it, but there's still something odd sitting there, and what if it can reach a different IOC that I don't have information about? I want to focus on it. I could do that by leveraging Awake if it could ingest the IOCs automatically. That's something I leverage Awake for today. I still have to manually import it, which is cumbersome because I have to manipulate the files that I get from the different IOC providers into a specific format that it understands. Once they add the ability to automate that, it'll be more useful.
Muhammad Harun-Owr-Roshid - PeerSpot reviewer
Have streamlined network visibility and troubleshooting while seeing benefits from AI integration
In terms of improvements for Cisco Secure Network Analytics, from the implementation point of view, now that AI is in use, some other features need to be upgraded considering AI solutions. Proper management of the database is also important; it should be centralized for easier data collection from a single database. When precise manual analysis is needed, it's sometimes difficult, so having a centralized database will allow network admins to find actual scenarios more effectively, especially since some information may not be visible on the GUI. Cisco should upgrade their hardware part to run the database, because sometimes it cannot handle the load while all features are running in the network. The database management should indeed be centralized because while AI runs behind the systems, central management is essential. For example, in a network with 100 Cisco switches, a few routers, firewalls, and access points, all data generated should be preserved in a central database. This approach simplifies management and analysis for troubleshooting, as GUI interfaces may not always provide visible information. Centralizing the database will allow for better understanding of which information is preserved for each specific device.
Malebo Lethoba Group - PeerSpot reviewer
Have found the AI analyst and detection functions highly valuable for network operations while managing complexity in initial setup
The functions I find most valuable in Darktrace are the AI analyst as well as the detection.The autonomous response capabilities of Darktrace are not crucial for me because it doesn't work in a network where there are no core switches. In a modern network, the autonomous response doesn't work, especially when sitting in a shared data center.If I'm running a traditional network where I am not in a shared data center with a layer two dedicated for my resources, then it can work for me. However, if I am in a data center where I don't have layer two, it becomes an issue because the autonomous response is reliant on sending spoofed TCP resets to my core switch to block traffic, which is a major issue.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface itself is clean and easy to use, yet customizable. I like that I can create my own dashboards fairly easily so that I can see what is important to me. Also, the query language is pretty easy to use. I haven't needed to use it a ton, but as I need to go in and do different queries based on their requests, it has been fairly simple to use."
"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."
"We appreciate the value of the AML (structured query language). We receive security intel feeds for a specific type of malware or ransomware. AML queries looking for the activity is applied in almost real-time. Ultimately, this determines if the activity was not observed on the network."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It's a dependable product that is able to pinpoint where we have vulnerabilities if they occur."
"The most valuable feature is integration."
"I believe this solution has reduced our incident response time."
"It's easy to set up. The deployment takes one or two days. You need to collect the data from a device and then direct it to the portal."
"Stealthwatch has greatly improved our network visibility, in terms of bandwidth, malware, and PCI violations."
"The most valuable feature is NetFlow. The beginning of any security investigation starts with NetFlow data."
"Able to drill down into a center's utilization, then create reports based on it."
"The most valuable features are encrypted threat analysis and the ability to run jobs on entire flows."
"The most valuable feature of Darktrace and the most valuable feature is the artificial intelligence module because that is the tool that determines automatically if there is any risk or not in the network."
"Darktrace is very useful for us because it has a large number of models for detecting threats."
"Its most valuable feature is its ability to identify malicious connected IPs from outside and the attacks that get through to the inside."
"The autonomous response is also highly designed in Darktrace."
"The most valuable feature is the alerts. The alerts are meaningful. The event rolls up into meaningful and actionable alerts rather than just being noise."
"We have found the product to be stable and issue-free."
"The most valuable feature is the endpoint protection."
"Technical support is helpful and responsive."
 

Cons

"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."
"There's room for improvement with some of the definitions, because I don't have time and I'm not a Tier 4 analyst. I believe that is something they're working towards."
"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."
"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."
"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?"
"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."
"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."
"When I looked at the competitors, such as Darktrace, they all have prettier interfaces. If Awake could make it a little more user-friendly, that would go a long way."
"We determined that Stealthwatch wouldn't provide the machine learning model that we required."
"The initial setup is complex, as there is a lot to configure."
"Better integration between Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Cisco Secure Workload would be beneficial."
"Reliance on Java. Get away from that."
"Improvements are needed on the application layer for complete security analysis."
"We haven't seen ROI."
"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."
"I would like for the product to work on the endpoints as well. I would like to see enhanced visibility into the endpoints and network but this solution only sits on the network itself."
"The dashboard and reporting for this solution could be improved as it is currently complex. The GUI for this solution could also be improved."
"The solution's user interface and stability could be improved."
"Pricing bothers me and this is one of the major factors when choosing a solution."
"Darktrace needs significant improvement in its notification capabilities."
"I feel that Darktrace could be improved, particularly in the support aspect which is currently very poor. We need to chase Darktrace instead of them being proactive with us."
"There are still some issues with the network capturing or blocking traffic even after implementing exceptions."
"There are still some issues with the network capturing or blocking traffic even after implementing exceptions. It requires more learning in this area."
 

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."
"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."
"The solution is very good and the pricing is also better than others..."
"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 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."
"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."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"There are additional licenses needed for the number of so-called network flows. It's hard to plan the number of flows you need in the network, this is a problem. The price of the Cisco Stealthwatch is relatively inexpensive"
"​Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside (in traffic)."
"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."
"This is an expensive product. We have quit paying for support because we don't want to have to upgrade it and keep paying for it."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"It is a very expensive product."
"In the ballpark, we're talking about $30K, $50K, and up. It can even be as much as $50K or $100K."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
"Darktrace is pricey, but the price is reasonable for what the solution does, and it's comparable to other products."
"The price of Darktrace is high and could be reduced. We pay approximately $30,000 to $54,000 annually."
"Darktrace is quite an expensive solution."
"We had an issue with pricing initially and had to cancel some of the features of the projects to fit the budget. I would like to see pricing that is not broken up into parts so that we can buy the whole package once. Darktrace is more expensive than an average solution, but it's functionality won't match that of an average solution."
"It is expensive. I don't have the price for other competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Arista NDR?
Arista NDR's scalability is very good, making it easy to add more hardware components. You can order additional hardw...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arista NDR?
The tool's pricing is expensive but it is competitive.
What needs improvement with Arista NDR?
Arista NDR needs to open legal offices to be closer to customers and partners. It needs more visibility in the NDR ma...
What do you like most about Cisco Stealthwatch?
The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is the Threat Intelligence integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
Regarding cost, for the Bangladesh context, Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a little bit high-priced because we are...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
In terms of improvements for Cisco Secure Network Analytics, from the implementation point of view, now that AI is in...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing u...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is ...
What do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet tr...
 

Also Known As

Awake Security Platform
Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace, Vectra AI, Trend Micro and others in Network Detection and Response (NDR). Updated: August 2025.
867,826 professionals have used our research since 2012.