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Arista NDR vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

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 Traffic Analysis (NTA)
8th
Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)
11th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Darktrace
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
1st
Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (8th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (10th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Detection and Response (NDR) category, the mindshare of Arista NDR is 3.9%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 22.3%, down from 25.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Darktrace22.3%
Arista NDR3.9%
Other73.8%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1719513 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Malebo Lethoba Group - PeerSpot reviewer
Have found the AI analyst and detection functions highly valuable for network operations while managing complexity in initial setup
The functions I find most valuable in Darktrace are the AI analyst as well as the detection.The autonomous response capabilities of Darktrace are not crucial for me because it doesn't work in a network where there are no core switches. In a modern network, the autonomous response doesn't work, especially when sitting in a shared data center.If I'm running a traditional network where I am not in a shared data center with a layer two dedicated for my resources, then it can work for me. However, if I am in a data center where I don't have layer two, it becomes an issue because the autonomous response is reliant on sending spoofed TCP resets to my core switch to block traffic, which is a major issue.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The query language makes it easy to query the records on the network, to do searches for the various threat activities that we're looking for. The dashboard, the Security Knowledge Graph, displays information meaningfully and easily. I am able to find the information that I want to find pretty quickly."
"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 most valuable feature is the ability to see suspicious activity for devices inside my network. It helps me to quickly identify that activity and do analysis to see if it's expected or I need to mitigate that activity quickly."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable portion is that they offer a threat-hunting service. Using their platform, and all of the data that they're collecting, they actually help us be proactive by having really expert folks that have insight, not just into our accounts, but into other accounts as well. They can be proactive and say, 'Well, we saw this incident at some other customer. We ran that same kind of analysis for you and we didn't see that type of activity in your network.'"
"This solution’s encrypted traffic analysis helps us stay in compliance with government regulations. It is all about understanding data exfiltration, what is ingressing and egressing in our network. One common attack vector is exfiltrating data using encryption. My capabilities to see potential data exfiltration over encrypted traffic is second to none now."
"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."
"The NDR is good in their solution and they have NTG for email."
"Darktrace is valuable since it offers full packet capture and detailed metadata."
"It is a stable solution."
"It is very easy to work with Darktrace once you know how it works and the type of permissions that you need to get related to the security over a network. The interface is awesome. I'm sure that you have seen Ironman, and you know Jarvis, the computer of Tony Stark. The interface of Darktrace is very similar, and you can see in 3D, like a hologram, the whole network, traffic, and all the traces inside the network. The interface is awesome, and it provides a lot of information. At least for us, it is very easy to handle this interface, get the reports, and do the interpretation of those reports. Darktrace also provides mobile monitoring. With an app on your mobile phone, you can view the information live, which is very useful for area directors and field engineers. Darktrace can be also correlated with any type of big data solution, such as Splunk."
"One member of staff is enough for deployment and maintenance because Darkforce is AI-driven. It does a lot of things by itself."
"It is autonomous. So, it learns. It uses algorithms and AI to learn the common behavioral patterns on the network, and it is able to identify threats based on abnormal patterns."
"The most valuable feature is that it works autonomously."
"One thing I appreciate is Antigena Email, which is for email protection."
 

Cons

"While the appliance is very good, and I think they're working on it, it would probably help if they integrated the management team cases into the appliance so that everything we are working on with them would be accessible on our platform, on the dashboard, on the portal. Right now, Awake is just an additional team that uses the appliance that we use and then we communicate with them directly. Communication isn't through the portal."
"One thing I would like to see is a little bit more education or experience on AWS cloud for their managed services team. We've explained how we have the information set up, that the traffic coming in goes to the AWS load balancer and then gets sent on to our internal servers... but when I get notices they always tell me this traffic is coming from the IPs belonging to the load balancers, not the source IPs. So a little bit more education for their team about how AWS manages the traffic might help out."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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?"
"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."
"I would like to see the capability to import what's known as STIX/TAXII in an IOC format. It currently doesn't offer this."
"It is expensive, but everything else has been great so far."
"There are still some issues with the network capturing or blocking traffic even after implementing exceptions. It requires more learning in this area."
"The pricing model is a little too high and could be more flexible."
"They just need to make it a little bit more accurate as far as their alerts are concerned. It does generate some false positives that you have to tune. You have to do a lot of tuning when you first get it because of the false positives, but once it is all tuned up and ready to go, it will do its thing from there."
"In a shared environment, it doesn't work, and there are still some integration issues."
"Needs to improve its collaboration with local partners."
"Darkforce could be improved in the range of the interface; how to interact with the actions it's taking or not taking."
"It's quite expensive to have."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is very good and the pricing is also better than others..."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We had an issue with pricing initially and had to cancel some of the features of the projects to fit the budget. I would like to see pricing that is not broken up into parts so that we can buy the whole package once. Darktrace is more expensive than an average solution, but it's functionality won't match that of an average solution."
"If you consider the features and the cost of market leaders, we are satisfied with the pricing."
"Prior to negotiating, Darktrace offered their appliance and service for $80,000 per year."
"The tool's pricing is costly."
"The price of the solution is not cheap. It is not a one-time purchase, there is a subscription that needs to be paid every one to five years depending on your choice. It is expensive but you can reduce the price by only using the services that you want."
"Darktrace is pricey, but the price is reasonable for what the solution does, and it's comparable to other products."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
"When it comes to large installations, it can be expensive, but for small accounts it's fine."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise29
 

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...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time.
 

Also Known As

Awake Security Platform
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

- Dolby Laboratories- Seattle Genetics- ARM Energy- Ooma- Prophix- Yapstone
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Arista NDR vs. Darktrace and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.