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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)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (15th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (11th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System is 1.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vectra AI is 7.4%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Vectra AI7.4%
Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System1.5%
Other91.1%
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."
"The most useful feature is the anomaly detection because it's not signature-based. It picks up the initial part of any attack, like the recon and those aspects of the kill chain, very well."
"The biggest feature for us, because we are heavy Microsoft users, is its integration with Office 365. On top of Vectra AI, we use all of the Microsoft security platforms, such as Defender ATP and Sentinel. Having full integration and a central platform to look at all of the threats that are coming through from the different platforms is a huge benefit for us."
"The packet-capturing feature is very useful."
"One of the things that we didn't expect to happen was that our network team also jumped on it faster than we thought. In most cases, if it's a security tool that's working on the network part, they can also use it to find out certain flaws that have been in the system. Certain flaws, related to some legacy stuff, were already there for quite a few years, which they couldn't explain at first, but we could explain them based on the timing of certain things."
"The UI is easy to use and when we send detection to everybody, they easily understand what we are asking at the time."
"What I like best about Vectra AI is that it alerts you about suspicious activities."
"The initial setup was pretty straightforward."
"We particularly like the user experience around the dashboard, which we find to be much more straightforward than the dashboard of some of the competitive products... Vectra is a really easy system to understand and use to prioritize where we need to focus our security resources."
 

Cons

"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
"Neither Vectra nor Darktrace have a function like a status health check on my log sources and traffic sources."
"Pricing could be improved, as many customers have complained about the pricing model and pricing complexity."
"Vectra AI could be improved by focusing on all threat types, not only malicious threats or virus threats."
"Some of the customization could be improved. Everything is provided for you as an easy solution to use, but working with it and doing specific development could be worked on a bit more in the scope of an incident response team."
"In comparison with a lot of systems I used in the past, the false positives are really a burden because they are taking a lot of time at this moment."
"I would like to see a bit more strategic metrics instead of technical data. Information that I could show to my executive management team or board would be valuable."
"Vectra AI could be improved by focusing on all threat types, not only malicious threats or virus threats."
"The false positives and the tuning side of it is something that could use improvement. But that could be from our side."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is high."
"Its cost is too much. It's an investment that we can afford. It's a lot, but it's worth it."
"The solution's pricing was 50 percent lower than the other vendors shortlisted."
"Vectra AI is not a cheap solution."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is very good. It's less expensive than many of the tools out there."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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.
 

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: January 2026.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.