Arista NDR vs Vectra AI comparison

Read 45 Vectra AI reviews

9,125 Views
6,388 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Arista NDR

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 6, 2024

Vectra AI and Arista NDR are prominent competitors in the realm of network detection and response solutions. Vectra AI appears to have the upper hand due to its precise detection capabilities through AI-enabled filtering and triaging, which are highly praised in reducing alert fatigue.

Features: Vectra AI emphasizes detection precision with AI-enabled filtering and triaging, comprehensive attack lifecycle visibility, and risk-based threat prioritization. Arista NDR is known for its detailed traffic analysis, enriched security insights, and real-time enhanced visibility, coupled with its praised detailed reporting capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Vectra AI could benefit from better integration with third-party systems and improved management of complex host-driven threats. Enhancements for tracking multiple attack sources and better integrating host behavior analysis are needed. Arista NDR should expand its geographic presence and enhance engineering support, especially in underrepresented markets.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Vectra AI and Arista NDR offer strong technical support. Vectra AI is recognized for its robust customer service structure, ensuring responsive support. Arista NDR is appreciated for its responsive customer service due to a close-knit support team, but might benefit from an expanded support infrastructure as the company grows.

Pricing and ROI: Vectra AI’s licensing is costly but seen as a valuable investment for enterprises focusing on threat detection. Arista NDR offers competitive pricing, making it a budget-friendly option, ideal for firms seeking cost-effective MDR service integration. Both solutions provide ROI by reducing incident response times and enhancing network security efficiency, though Vectra AI’s complex licensing may deter some customers.

To learn more, read our detailed Arista NDR vs. Vectra AI Report (Updated: July 2025).

Download the complete report

Arista NDR vs. Vectra AI

July 2025

Helped 865,295 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

Arista NDR

Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)

10th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (7th)

Vectra AI

Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (19th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (10th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Detection and Response (NDR) category, the mindshare of Arista NDR is 3.9%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vectra AI is 16.0%, down from 17.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Detection and Response (NDR)

Featured Reviews

reviewer1719513

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.

Read full review

Mohammad Alkurdi

Owner at Fortibits

Innovative detection features enhance monitoring

The advantages of the integration are not entirely out-of-the-box. You have to do it manually. When I'm doing tier response, an out-of-the-box solution is not available. You need to have a Linux server, and from the Linux server, you must perform AI tasks, and there is a lot to be handled in the back end. This is a major consideration about them. The recall feature, if it can be placed in some areas instead of the cloud, and charged for, would be better. Recall the storage where you watch all the traffic, and you can recall it and try to analyze it in the back end. It’s cloud-based. If they offer it on-prem, it would be better. I think they have a solution, but I have never tested it, to be honest with you.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"The query language that they have is quite valuable, especially because the sensor itself is storing some network activity and we're able to query that. That has been useful in a pinch because we don't necessarily use it just for threat hunting, but we also use it for debugging network issues. We can use it to ask questions and get answers about our network. For example: Which users and devices are using the VPN for RDP access? We can write a query pretty quickly and get an answer for that."

More Arista NDR pros

"It's easy to manage, and I love the UX. It's very well designed. When we are looking for something, it's quite easy to find it."

"One of the key advantages for us is we define a 24/7 service around it. We use far more of Vectra alerts than we do with our SIEM product because we understand that when we get an alert from Vectra we actually need to do something about it."

"The solution provide visibility into behaviors across the full lifecycle of an attack in our network, beyond just the Internet gateway. It makes our security operations much more effective because we are now looking not just at traffic on the border, but we're looking at east-west internal traffic. Now, not only will we see if an exploit kit is being downloaded, but we would be able to see then if that exploit kit was then laterally distributed into our environment."

"Most of their use cases, including deployment, are managed by the tool itself, requiring less manual input from our team."

"It's important for us that the user interface is easy to understand and that is the biggest benefit we see from Vectra AI."

"The most valuable feature for Cognito Detect, the main solution, is that external IDS's create a lot of alerts. When I say a lot of alerts I really mean a lot of alerts. Vectra, on the other hand, contextualizes everything, reducing the number of alerts and pinpointing only the things of interest. This is a key feature for me. Because of this, a non-trained analyst can use it almost right away."

"It has helped us to organize our security. We get a better overview on what is happening on the network, which has helped us get quicker responses to users. If we see malicious activity, then we can quickly take action on it. Previously, we weren't getting an overview as fast as we are now, so we can now provide a quicker response."

"It gives you access, with Recall, to instant visibility into your network through something like a SIEM solution. For us, being able to correlate all of this network data without having to manage it, has provided immediate value. It gives us the ability to really work on the stuff where I and my team have expertise, instead of having to manage a SIEM solution..."

More Vectra AI pros

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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"I enjoy the query language, but it could be a bit more user-friendly, especially for new users who come across it... They should push it more into a natural language style as opposed to a query language."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Arista NDR cons

"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."

"What is most important for us is to have one place where we can manage a few brains because we are based on a zero-trust network. As a result, each customer needs to have a separate brain. For the SOC team, we need to have one place where the SOC analyst can go to visit the website and from that site manage all of the customers. Right now, Vectra AI doesn't have this capability, and I would really like to have this feature."

"I would like to see data processed onshore. Right now, the cloud components, like Office 365, must be processed on servers outside of Australia. I would like to see a future adoption of onshore processing."

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

"We have had a few issues with the integration of Vectra AI with EDR. Some filters have not been working. We've also had issues with the brain not being powerful enough."

"We had another product with Vectra AI and used the MDR solution as an add-on. Initially, it wasn't fully appropriately configured, so we didn't get the expected results. Even once configured correctly, we weren't fully satisfied with its response. The issue was both with their service response and the product's capabilities."

"The solution needs to become more proactive. When Vectra AI is the primary solution in an environment - like it is in our case - you must work on response time. We have a small team so response time at endpoint level is vital."

"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."

More Vectra AI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

"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 solution is very good and the pricing is also better than others..."

"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."

"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."

"Vectra is a bit on the higher side in terms of price, but they have always been transparent. The reason that they are this good is that they invest, so they need to charge accordingly."

"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."

"The license is based on the concurrent IP addresses that it's investigating. We have 9,800 to 10,000 IP addresses."

"It is an expensive solution, but it's not the most expensive we've seen. We also know how much we're going to pay, unlike with some other providers where all of a sudden our license explodes."

"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 solution's pricing was 50 percent lower than the other vendors shortlisted."

"Vectra AI is not a cheap solution."

More Vectra AI pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Detection and Response (NDR) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 hardware and integrate it by stacking it with the existing setup. This feature cannot...

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 market in the Middle East. While they are doing well, they lack sufficient enginee...

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 ...

What do you like most about Vectra AI?

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

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

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

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Arista NDR

Comparisons

Darktrace vs Arista NDR

Compared 14% of the time

Compared 14% of the time

Trend Micro Deep Discovery vs Arista NDR

Compared 9% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Arista NDR

Compared 7% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs Arista NDR

Compared 6% of the time

More Arista NDR Competitors

Darktrace vs Vectra AI

Compared 28% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Vectra AI

Compared 11% of the time

Corelight vs Vectra AI

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Vectra AI

Compared 5% of the time

Fortinet FortiNDR vs Vectra AI

Compared 4% of the time

More Vectra AI Competitors

Product Reports

Download Arista NDR product report

Arista NDR

August 2025

Download Vectra AI product report

July 2025

Also Known As

Awake Security Platform

Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR

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

Arista

Vectra AI is used for detecting network anomalies and potential malicious activities, providing visibility into network traffic and enhancing threat detection across environments.

Organizations deploy Vectra AI mainly on-premises with additional cloud components. It helps with compliance, incident response, security monitoring, detecting insider threats, and correlating network events. Vectra AI captures and enriches network metadata, provides detailed dashboards, reduces false positives, and supports cross-environment behavioral analysis to enhance threat detection and prioritization. While valued for its high accuracy and alert aggregation, it has room for improvement in UI/UX, packet management, and integration with SIEMs and other tools. It is noted for expensive pricing and limited proactive threat response features.

What are Vectra AI's most valuable features?

High accuracy in identifying threat locations
Aggregation of alerts into single incidents
24/7 threat detection
Visibility into the entire attack lifecycle
Risk score aggregation
Effective triaging of alerts
Integration with other tools

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced threat detection and prioritization
Comprehensive network visibility
Reduction in false positives
Better incident response capabilities
Improved compliance monitoring

In specific industries, Vectra AI is deployed to monitor complex networks and alleviate challenges in threat detection. It is particularly effective in sectors requiring stringent compliance and security measures, offering insights and capabilities crucial for protecting sensitive data and maintaining operational integrity.

Sample Customers

- Dolby Laboratories- Seattle Genetics- ARM Energy- Ooma- Prophix- Yapstone

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