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

Aruba IntroSpect vs Cisco Secure Network Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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

Aruba IntroSpect
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (24th)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (33rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Aruba IntroSpect is 3.4%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 9.0%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics9.0%
Aruba IntroSpect3.4%
Other87.6%
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

Marko Pirc - PeerSpot reviewer
IP Network Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Key features are roaming, application control and the firewall
We are partners of Aruba as well as sellers and customers. My job in the company is IP network engineer.  The roaming is a feature that works very well. In addition, the application control and firewall features are very good. These are all important features and make the product a valuable one.…
Akash Das Barman - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Trainee at DataSpace Academy
Network analytics has reduced investigation time and provides deeper visibility into lateral movement
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look very attractive for audit and compliance teams at implementation time and can generate structured reports for visibility, risk posture, and traffic summaries. In practice, many teams do not rely on it heavily because SIEM tools or GRC platforms already handle reporting better. Built-in threat intelligence feeds represent another area where expectations do not always match usage. The platform includes threat intelligence-based detection and classifications. Initially, teams expect to depend on this heavily, but later SOC teams often prefer their own threat intelligence feeds or correlate intelligence inside SIEM instead. The built-in feeds are used but not as a primary detection source. Automated incident summaries and guided investigation views are designed to simplify triage by automatically grouping related activity into incidents. However, teams often move away from them due to various factors affecting adoption.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I haven't heard of any issues with stability."
"Roaming feature, application control and firewall features."
"The roaming is a feature that works very well, and the application control and firewall features are very good, making the product a valuable one."
"The most valuable feature is the end-user monitoring, and if there is any abnormal behavior on the machine, the administrator will be alerted."
"Another notable feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is its Layer 7 visibility, which allows us to monitor and analyze network communications at the application layer."
"Most valuable features are the network maps and server and network response time."
"This solution has increased our threat detection rate by forty to sixty percent."
"The search options on Cisco Stealthwatch are the most valuable. You can get very granular with it, down to the kilobits or the seconds if you want. The product supports any time frame that you need, so that is nice."
"The ability to send data flow from other places and have them all in one place is very valuable for us."
"It works efficiently for encrypted traffic analysis."
"It's a dependable product that is able to pinpoint where we have vulnerabilities if they occur."
"If you are using Darktrace or NAC solutions you can integrate Stealthwatch."
 

Cons

"The packet analyzer needs improvement."
"Technical support is unfortunately a little slow."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard, where you can get the information with a simple click."
"The dashboard could be simplified. You don't have a clear cut view and you have to dive deep into the options to gain some understanding."
"Cisco Stealthwatch has increased the administrative time required just to get everything up and running smoothly."
"One update that I would like to see is an agent-based client. Currently, Stealthwatch is network-based. A local agent could help manage endpoints."
"Reliance on Java. Get away from that."
"It's too complicated to install, when starting out."
"If they can make this product more web-based, that would be amazing."
"It's a good solid solution but integration with Network Access Control products with Cisco ISE would be good."
"At my company, we might not be using it enough with other applications that we have that can integrate with it."
"This is a good solution, but Java is still in the SMC, the Firepower integration is not really there, and I would really appreciate people being told about the necessity of ISE beforehand."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is based on the number of users. The evaluation license is free, you can download it from the website and try it out first."
"We pay for support costs 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"
"Pricing is much higher compared to other solutions."
"Our fees are approximately $3,000 USD."
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"​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."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions are best for your needs.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Media Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aruba IntroSpect?
Aruba Introspect has two licenses - advanced and standard. While we found the price of the advanced license to be a bit high, the standard license is reasonably priced and costs less than half the ...
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 a developing country, making it tough to manage affordable solutions. However, ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch?
My main use case for Cisco Secure Network Analytics has been network visibility and anomaly-based threat detection within the enterprise environment. In security operations and VAPT-related activit...
 

Also Known As

IntroSpect
Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sage Hotel, Centara Hotels and Resorts, Asda, The Dolder Grand,
Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba IntroSpect vs. Cisco Secure Network Analytics and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.