No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Arista NDR vs Darktrace vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention 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

Network Detection and Response (NDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Arista NDR3.3%
Darktrace16.6%
Vectra AI12.5%
Other67.6%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Darktrace16.6%
Vectra AI12.5%
ExtraHop Reveal(x)6.7%
Other64.19999999999999%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention5.1%
Fortinet FortiGate12.6%
Darktrace11.2%
Other71.1%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1719513 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
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.
AM
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
Consistent threat hunting and anomaly detection deliver valuable insights for network security management
In terms of improvement for Darktrace, pricing is the main concern. Pricing bothers me and this is one of the major factors when choosing a solution. When we get feedback from customers, that's the only felt need. When we factor in Darktrace, we do it only limited. We put it on where the perimeters and connections are, but still, some gray areas are left out, especially if we have multiple branches. We need Darktrace on each branch to get the data out, and I suggest having some kind of a centralized product that gets data from multiple sources to aggregate and provide the data.
Partha Dash - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Network Tech Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Advanced protection enables us to confidently secure against evolving threats
Palo Alto Networks can improve Advanced Threat Prevention by catering to the growing adoption of AI and agentic tooling. The Threat Protection modules should have the necessary intelligence to protect against those types of threats, as AI will be there to do a human job; this is an evolving area. From an Advanced Threat Protection perspective, the technology associated with Palo Alto Networks, such as their sandboxing environment, is quite good. However, Palo Alto needs to focus on how to bring that technology to end users and how easy it is to use, especially in a hybrid environment where users work from various locations. While Palo Alto excels in certain setups, they need to improve the user experience in distributed working conditions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Awake MNDR has made our security posture more comfortable, and we get some peace of mind knowing they're there if something should happen."
"Awake’s technology, artificial intelligence, and human expertise within the MNDR service have really increased our security abilities."
"Awake's MNDR has affected our overall security posture very positively."
"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."
"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."
"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's saving me money, saving me time, and gives me a level of comfort that I have visibility within our network which I don't think I could get very easily any other way."
"The most valuable portion is that they offer a threat-hunting service. Using their platform, and all of the data that they're collecting, they actually help us be proactive by having really expert folks that have insight, not just into our accounts, but into other accounts as well. They can be proactive and say, 'Well, we saw this incident at some other customer. We ran that same kind of analysis for you and we didn't see that type of activity in your network.'"
"It is autonomous, so it learns; it uses algorithms and AI to learn the common behavioral patterns on the network, and it is able to identify threats based on abnormal patterns."
"What I like about Darktrace, is that you can quickly identify threats."
"It provides a comprehensive, detailed view of network activity and whatever is happening inside it."
"The most valuable part of the product is the whole package, as the features included in the Enterprise Immune System are complete and effective and its detection engine is ridiculously good."
"Because of unsupervised machine learning, its detection capability is quite good."
"One member of staff is enough for deployment and maintenance because Darkforce is AI-driven. It does a lot of things by itself."
"It has helped the organization to detect any malware affecting the machines...The network monitoring and the email monitoring features are very valuable for us."
"The most valuable feature is the solution's ability to trim out the false positives and point your attention to the real important stuff."
"It effectively prevents malware, ransomware, and other attacks."
"It is a stable product."
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Threat Prevention for our company is the next generation firewall."
"They're cutting edge."
"What is nice about Palo Alto is that even if you don't understand how to use it, you can just click on upload and upload everything that needs to be blocked."
"The user interface is a bit more professional than some free products."
"The solution is very good, especially compared to other solutions."
"The most valuable features are that it's user-friendly, has interesting features, URL filtering, and threat prevention."
 

Cons

"One thing I would like to see is a little bit more education or experience on AWS cloud for their managed services team. We've explained how we have the information set up, that the traffic coming in goes to the AWS load balancer and then gets sent on to our internal servers... but when I get notices they always tell me this traffic is coming from the IPs belonging to the load balancers, not the source IPs. So a little bit more education for their team about how AWS manages the traffic might help out."
"There's room for improvement with some of the definitions, because I don't have time and I'm not a Tier 4 analyst."
"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."
"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 Security needs to move to a 24/7 support model in the MNDR space. Once they do that, it will make them even better."
"I enjoy the query language, but it could be a bit more user-friendly, especially for new users who come across it."
"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."
"Some of the searching capability is a bit hard to use without in-depth knowledge."
"The pricing is a bit high for the region."
"In the next version, I'd like to see penetration testing."
"The product is considered expensive compared to others."
"The product doesn't have an endpoint agent that can react to triggers set on the device,"
"The program is quite expensive."
"The level of tracking within the network from the transmission level up to the machine level can use improvement."
"Although we haven't detected any network threats since implementing Darktrace, we are unsure of its efficacy. It would be beneficial if the solution could offer additional details to the user regarding any potential or prevented threats. Additionally, there could be better search tools and integration."
"My only criticism of the product is that its licensing model isn't flexible."
"The initial setup was very complex as the solution does not have these APIs to facilitate the configuration."
"Palo Alto's maintenance needs to be improved."
"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve the commercial offing. Other solutions, such as Fortinet provide better commercial features."
"It's not so easy to set up a test environment, because it's not so easy to get the test license. The vendor only gives you 90 days for a test license; it's a tough license to get."
"The application’s pricing and dashboard need improvement. It could be user-friendly."
"The organization mail security solutions could be improved. There is no mail security solution available."
"The documentation needs to be improved. I need better information about how to configure it and what the best practices are."
"In Africa, the technical support is probably not as good as in Europe and the USA because it's a specific premium support, partner-enabled premium support and all of that. But it's really good, I don't really have any complaints, it's fairly good. I'll give them 80%."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"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..."
"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."
"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."
"I'm unfamiliar with the exact cost, but we have a yearly license and had to pay for Darktrace's services before the deployment. The product is very expensive, so some organizations can't afford to pay the total amount directly, meaning they often seek a partner or pay in installments, which increases the price more."
"The price of Darktrace is high and could be reduced. We pay approximately $30,000 to $54,000 annually."
"The price of the solution is not cheap. It is not a one-time purchase, there is a subscription that needs to be paid every one to five years depending on your choice. It is expensive but you can reduce the price by only using the services that you want."
"The pricing is expensive. It costs over $100,000 a year."
"There is an annual license to use Darktrace."
"I am using a demo of Darktrace for deployment and testing which is free."
"It is a very expensive product."
"The solution is about $6,000 per quarter."
"The price of the solution is higher than others on the market. A price reduction would be beneficial if it does not impact their database quality."
"The pricing and the licensing are pretty competitive at this stage. As a reseller, I would like to see the price come down a little bit so I can compete better against other firewalls because we do that all the time."
"The cost involves the price of the hardware, which is expensive. However, most of the Palo Alto solutions are expensive."
"The pricing has improved with the newer generation of their Firewalls, but the price could always be lower."
"It is an expensive solution and I would like to see a drop in price."
"The product’s pricing is expensive for small companies."
"If you want to have all of the good features then you have to pay extra for licensing."
"There is an initial, expensive investment but the return is good."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Detection and Response (NDR) solutions are best for your needs.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
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 Business45
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Darktrace?
Concerning pricing for the product, I would say it is somewhat expensive.
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?
Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention requires an add-on license and is considered expensive compared to comp...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?
Palo Alto Networks can improve Advanced Threat Prevention by catering to the growing adoption of AI and agentic tooli...
 

Also Known As

Awake Security Platform
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

- Dolby Laboratories- Seattle Genetics- ARM Energy- Ooma- Prophix- Yapstone
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.
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, SkiStar AB, TRI-AD, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace, Vectra AI, TrendAI and others in Network Detection and Response (NDR). Updated: February 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.