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Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System vs Vectra AI 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Hillstone S-Series Network ...
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Vectra AI
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (3rd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (20th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (11th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System is 1.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vectra AI is 6.5%, 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 AI6.5%
Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System1.8%
Other91.7%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1080873 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Complements any firewall
The core processors are there and it's able to generate reports for that. It also complements any kind of firewall. For example, if an end user is using Palo Alto as a firewall, they'd need another layer of firewall like the S-Series that will protect internal servers. It's something that complements any firewall in the market.
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

"Setup is straightforward with the same reliability and scalability as the firewall series."
"After deploying Vectra AI in our network, it began to add value to our security operations within a week."
"Vectra AI helped our team be more productive and save time. We have less work thanks to it."
"We discovered a lot of things in our network and are correcting several misconfigurations. We are learning how some apps work together and how some things shouldn't happen. It's also easier for us to identify the source of a brute force, whereas before, we didn't even know we had a brute force."
"We have been extremely happy with the solution; it's been one of the best solutions we have in our enterprise and I would put it at the top of the list."
"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."
"It has reduced the time it takes to respond to attacks. That comes back to the proactive point. It makes us able to lower down in the kill chain, we can react now, rather than reacting to incidents that happened, we can see an instant, in some cases, as it's being implemented, or as it's being launched."
"It provides various dashboards that facilitate the identification of connections and can detect data exfiltration, meaning data sent from your environment to another."
"Vectra AI is the best. It is a major product in our cybersecurity."
 

Cons

"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
"Integration with other security components needs improvement. It should have true integration as opposed to just being a separate pane of glass."
"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."
"Vectra AI could be improved by focusing on all threat types, not only malicious threats or virus threats."
"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."
"I would like to see ways they can look to bring out new cloud functionality without introducing additional costs for them as additional subscriptions."
"The solution's marketing is not good."
"Cost-wise, they're not cheap. They were definitely the most expensive option, but you get what you pay for."
"A blind spot that I have is around the ease with which you can automate threat intervention."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is high."
"Vectra AI is not a cheap solution."
"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."
"There are additional features that can be purchased in addition to the standard licensing fee, such as Cognito Recall and Stream."
"Vectra AI's pricing is cheaper than that of Darktrace."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's pricing was 50 percent lower than the other vendors shortlisted."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vectra AI?
I find the pricing of Vectra AI to be one of the best we have seen as feedback from customers and partners indicates it is very competitive for an EDR solution.
What needs improvement with Vectra AI?
I think one area that could be improved about Vectra AI is their marketing. One of the aspects that Darktrace excels at is their marketing, and I do not feel Vectra AI is on that level yet, leading...
What is your primary use case for Vectra AI?
I primarily use Vectra AI for customers, and I only provide Vectra AI.
 

Also Known As

Hillstone S-Series NIPS
Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Fortinet, Darktrace, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS). Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.