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Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System vs Vectra AI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 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

Hillstone I-Series Server B...
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
24th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (21st), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (17th)
Vectra AI
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (16th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (11th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System is 1.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vectra AI is 6.7%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Vectra AI6.7%
Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System1.7%
Other91.6%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

DAVI TEIXEIRA - PeerSpot reviewer
Physical Education Professional JR at Unimed
Beneficial AI detection, helpful support, but modern UI needed
The initial setup of the Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System requires a bunch of steps starting with installing the hardware and setting it up. However, most of the setup is done by the vendor. I rate the initial setup of the Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System an eight out of ten. The vendor provides free training in the software provided.
RR
Consultant at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
Threat detection has improved and malicious emails are now identified quickly
Vectra AI offers artificial intelligence capabilities with visibility that can be integrated into our day-to-day operations and other tools, including malware detection tools and cyber threat tools. Vectra AI has positively impacted my organization. Last year while using it, we received many malicious email threats and virus incidents, including a trojan virus that had reportedly been deployed by someone. Our company used Vectra AI to detect the malicious threats and viruses before they could cause more damage, and we successfully stopped the threats. Using Vectra AI, I notice that server downtime has decreased significantly. We now experience only two to three hours of downtime, whereas without Vectra AI and other tools, our downtime would exceed 48 to 72 hours.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One or two people can maintain and support the solution. The maintenance is not difficult."
"One or two people can maintain and support the solution. The maintenance is not difficult."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System are the AI detection and monitoring of common threats."
"Attack Signal Intelligence helped reduce irrelevant alerts by 80% to 90%, with metrics showing a 100-plus reduction in investigation workloads and roughly saving about 55,000 hours of investigation time."
"Our company used Vectra AI to detect the malicious threats and viruses before they could cause more damage, and we successfully stopped the threats."
"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."
"In comparison to some of the other tools that I've come across in this category, I would definitely give it a 10 out of 10."
"The automatic filtering that they provide is valuable. The logic inside that makes some detections instead of us is very useful. We are confident that if we are just looking into it and there is nothing, nothing could happen."
"Scalability wise, we have many sensors, and Vectra AI seems to handle them all very well."
"It has given us an increased level of confidence in our information security that we have a tool like Vectra to back up some of the incidents that could take place, knowing we are going to get them detected as quickly as possible and identified to us."
"We often use the new feature to create PCAP files from the whole data traffic. It makes it much easier to find network problems such as whether the server is responding to a request. It has nothing to do with security, but it helps a lot to find other problems."
 

Cons

"Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System can improve by having more anti-spam features that will hopefully eliminate all of the other threats."
"The UI dashboard view needs to be improved because it is ugly. If it was more modern it would be better. Additionally, better integration with other databases would be good."
"Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System can improve by having more anti-spam features that will hopefully eliminate all of the other threats."
"Other alternatives, like Darktrace, have a fancier UI."
"Some of their integrations with other sources of data, like external threat feeds, took a bit more work than I had hoped to get integrated."
"An area for improvement in Vectra AI is reporting because it currently needs some details. For example, when you download a report from Vectra AI, you won't see complete information about the alerts or triggers. Another area for improvement in the tool is that sometimes, an alert has high severity, yet it's marked as low severity. Vectra AI should have a mechanism to change the severity level from low to high or critical."
"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."
"If you hit a certain number of rules, triage filters, or groups, the UX responds more slowly."
"The solution has not reduced the security analyst workload in our organization because we still need to SIEM. Unfortunately, while Vectra, for us, is a brilliant tool for network investigations, giving wonderful visibility, it doesn't go the whole way to replace our SIEM that is needed for compliance. So, I still have the same amount of alerting and logging that I did before. It gives us more defined ability to see incidents, but it doesn't give us enough information to satisfy a PCI or 27001 audit."
"We have a lot of system solutions and integrations with system solutions. Vectra is a type of black box. It implements AI-informed detection mechanisms, but we cannot create system detections. I understand that the product is designed this way, but it would be great if we could create our own detections as well."
"You are always limited with visibility on the host due to the fact that it is a network based tool. It gives you visibility on certain elements of the attack path, but it doesn't necessarily give you visibility on everything. Specifically, the initial intrusion side of things that doesn't necessarily see the initial compromise. It doesn't see stuff that goes on the host, such as where scripts are run. Even though you are seeing traffic, it doesn't necessarily see the malicious payload. Therefore, it's very difficult for it to identify these type of host-driven complex attacks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is good. It is less expensive than the other solutions in the market. There are not any additional features or hidden costs."
"We are running at about 90,000 pounds per year. The solution is a licensed cost. The hardware that they gave us was pretty much next to nothing. It is the license that we're paying for."
"Vectra's pricing is too high. All schools will not be able to afford it. Vectra will only end up targeting higher education and higher value independence purely because of the price. A lot of schools would love to have a product like Vectra AI, but they simply can't because they struggle to even pay the high E5 licensing from Microsoft. When you're up against that, Vectra AI is never going to be within the sector's price range."
"Its cost is too much. It's an investment that we can afford. It's a lot, but it's worth it."
"Vectra's licensing model could scale to our research network, which has multiple, 100-gigabit links."
"The solution's pricing was 50 percent lower than the other vendors shortlisted."
"The license is based on the concurrent IP addresses that it's investigating. We have 9,800 to 10,000 IP addresses."
"At the time of purchase, we found the pricing acceptable. We had an urgency to get something in place because we had a minor breach that occurred at the tail end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017. This indicated we had a lack of ability to detect things on the network. Hence, why we moved quickly to get into the tool in place. We found things like Bitcoin mining and botnets which we closed quickly. In that regard, it was worth the money."
"The pricing and licensing are quite straightforward because they're based on the IP licenses. As a result, they are easy to count."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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.
What needs improvement with Vectra AI?
Vectra AI could be improved by focusing on all threat types, not only malicious threats or virus threats. All threats, including hacking attempts, should be comprehensively addressed. The user inte...
 

Also Known As

Hillstone sBDS
Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Norbert Wiener University, Regional Government of the Amazon
Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
Find out what your peers are saying about Hillstone I-Series Server Breach Detection System vs. Vectra AI and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.