Corelight vs Vectra AI comparison

Read 47 Vectra AI reviews

8,743 Views
5,421 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Corelight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 6, 2024

Vectra AI and Corelight are contenders in the network security solutions space. Vectra AI seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced AI-driven alert management capabilities.

Features: Vectra AI offers capabilities like advanced alert management that consolidates alerts into manageable incidents, captures network metadata at scale for enhanced context, and provides functionalities like Cognito Recall and Cognito Detect for improved visibility. Corelight integrates with Zeek for robust open-source traffic analysis, facilitates easy deployment, and enables detailed traffic insights.

Room for Improvement: Vectra AI needs improvements in integrating with external solutions and enhancing its user interface for better engagement. Users seek better logging and visibility on host-driven attacks. Corelight, despite its open-source strengths, requires additional feature development and ease of use improvements. Its complexity can overwhelm and complicate pricing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Vectra AI is mainly deployed on-premises with hybrid options, boasting strong technical support that enhances customer satisfaction. Corelight, also primarily on-premises, benefits from excellent technical support due to its smaller size, although its scalability might face challenges as demand grows.

Pricing and ROI: Vectra AI's high pricing reflects its comprehensive offerings, delivering a good ROI by reducing attack response time. However, it is less accessible for smaller budgets. In contrast, Corelight's pricing is more affordable and open-source, appealing to technically adept users, though additional investments may be required to maximize its value.

To learn more, read our detailed Corelight vs. Vectra AI Report (Updated: December 2025).

Download the complete report

Corelight vs. Vectra AI

December 2025

Helped 881,733 peers since 2012

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

Corelight

Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)

12th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (7th)

Vectra AI

Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (4th), 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 Network Detection and Response (NDR) category, the mindshare of Corelight is 4.1%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vectra AI is 12.6%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Detection and Response (NDR) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Vectra AI	12.6%
Corelight	4.1%
Other	83.3%

Network Detection and Response (NDR)

Q&A Highlights

Mazin Al-Shuaili

Head Of Retail Operations at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Jun 09, 2020

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?

Corelight is a Zeek based solution for network behavior analysis and Vectra AI is a User Behavior based solution. If you are comparing these 2 systems you are comparing apples to oranges. You shouldn't be evaluating these products against each other as they address different use cases for your network. My guess is you are either looking for better network visibility and possibly network detection or you need to understand insider threats (User Behavior). If you need both then you need both tools.

An expensive solution to monitor internet traffic with multiple dashboards

Featured Reviews

HamadaElewa

Technical Sales Manager at Spire Solutions

The huge library especially the open source link, makes it the main engine for Corelight with some enhancements in the commercial version. It has a very powerful level, such as signature-based attacks or behavioral attacks, with enhancements in the design. It is very flexible for intelligent implementations like IPs, especially between big companies and banks. Corelight is easy to understand and monitor what is going on behind the team. The solution is already integrated with other systems like Suricata, Elastic, and Microsoft tools. It's very easy to integrate signature-based or behavior-based engines. You can use Elastic for the dashboards to get it from Corelight, along with all the benefits and expandability.

Read full review

RahulReddy

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to deploy and easy to handle."

"The most valuable feature is the embedded IDS from Suricata."

"Corelight is easy to use."

"It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks."

"It's an easy way for us to get visibility in a client's environment."

"The core product provides excellent visibility, but my favorite feature is Vectra Recall."

"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."

"It provides various dashboards that facilitate the identification of connections and can detect data exfiltration, meaning data sent from your environment to another."

"Our company used Vectra AI to detect the malicious threats and viruses before they could cause more damage, and we successfully stopped the threats."

"The dashboard gives me a scoring system that allows me to prioritize things that I should look at. I may not necessarily care so much about one event, whereas if I have a single botnet detection or a brute force attack, I really want to get on top of those."

"Some valuable features of Vectra AI are that it is very intuitive and that there are only a small amount of false positives. Therefore, it's an effective solution."

"One of the key advantages for us is we define a 24/7 service around it. We use far more of Vectra alerts than we do with our SIEM product because we understand that when we get an alert from Vectra we actually need to do something about it."

"The packet-capturing feature is very useful."

More Vectra AI pros

Cons

"The solution’s architecture is complex and difficult to understand. There are multiple machines and VMs."

"Corelight hasn’t added features in a long time."

"Machine learning could be a good improvement, but it's very costly."

"In the next release, building a graphical user interface would be helpful."

"They can enhance the interface of the product. They can make it more interactive and also easier to use for feature access."

"One of the things that we are missing a bit is the capability to add our own rules to it. At the moment, the tech engine does its thing, but we have some cool ideas to make additional rules. There should be an option in the platform to add custom rules, or there should be some kind of user group where we can suggest them for the roadmap and see if they get evaluated and get transparent communication on whether they will be implemented in the product or not."

"We had another product with Vectra AI and used the MDR solution as an add-on. Initially, it wasn't fully appropriately configured, so we didn't get the expected results. Even once configured correctly, we weren't fully satisfied with its response. The issue was both with their service response and the product's capabilities."

"One of the things I am not so happy about when it comes to Vectra is the scoring board."

"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 more integrations with IOCs and threats currently on the Internet. I would also like to know which threats are based on zero-day attacks, current botnets, etc. Therefore, I would like more information on external threats."

"They use a proprietary logging format that is probably 90% similar to Bro Logs. Their biggest area of improvement is finishing out the remaining 10%. That 10% might not be beneficial to their ML engine, but that's fine. The industry standard is Zeek Logs or Bro Logs, or Bro or Zeek, depending on how old you are. While they have 90% of those fields, they're still missing some fields. In very rare instances, some community rules do not have the fields that they need, and we had to modify community rules for our logs. So, their biggest area of improvement would be to just finish their matching of the Zeek standard."

"Multiple appliances are required for Vectra AI, making it less convenient compared to competitors."

"Vectra AI could be improved by focusing on all threat types, not only malicious threats or virus threats."

More Vectra AI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a yearly fee and depends on what you are looking for."

"Vectra AI's pricing is cheaper than that of Darktrace."

"Its cost is too much. It's an investment that we can afford. It's a lot, but it's worth it."

"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'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."

"From a licensing perspective, the Vectra detect platform is pretty doable. Also, the hardware prices are nothing that we're not used to. The stream part is a little overpriced compared to the detect part. The reason is that you need to stream data to detect events anyway, so the data is in there. The only thing that's not available is the UI to be able to look at the stream data, which is also on the appliances but is just not activated. That's mainly the thing that we want to improve on."

"There are additional features that can be purchased in addition to the standard licensing fee, such as Cognito Recall and Stream."

"The pricing is high."

"It is an expensive solution, but it's not the most expensive we've seen. We also know how much we're going to pay, unlike with some other providers where all of a sudden our license explodes."

More Vectra AI pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Detection and Response (NDR) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Answers from the Community

Mazin Al-Shuaili

Head Of Retail Operations at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Jun 9, 2020

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?

2 out of 5 answers

JJennifer Geisler

Chief Marketing Officer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees

Feb 13, 2020

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 data lake. You then rely on an open-source community for things like detections. Vectra not only does that – but also enriches the underlying data. It is also delivered as an investigative workbench that includes out-of-box detections that highlight and prioritize attacker behaviors and campaigns. Perhaps just as importantly, Corelight has few integrations whereas Vectra natively integrates with parts of infrastructure like EDR, orchestration and network security products.

Read full answer

OseremeOsobase

Director at Baverianvine

Feb 13, 2020

I would recommend you look at Darktrace instead. Extrahop and the new kid on the block, Awake security are also recommended.

Read full answer

See all 5 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	29

Questions from the Community

What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?

What do you like most about Corelight?

It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Corelight?

The solution is too expensive compared to others. If you have the technical knowledge, it's good. Corelight is a very big gap between you and others if you’re new.

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...

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Corelight

Comparisons

Darktrace vs Corelight

Compared 27% of the time

Compared 15% of the time

NetWitness NDR vs Corelight

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Corelight

Compared 6% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) 360 vs Corelight

Compared 5% of the time

More Corelight Competitors

Darktrace vs Vectra AI

Compared 22% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Vectra AI

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Vectra AI

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiNDR vs Vectra AI

Compared 4% of the time

Rapid7 InsightIDR vs Vectra AI

Compared 3% of the time

More Vectra AI Competitors

Product Reports

Network Detection and Response (NDR)

January 2026

Download Corelight product report

Download Vectra AI product report

January 2026

Also Known As

No data available

Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR

Overview

Corelight is the most powerful network visibility solution for information security professionals. We provide real-time data that organizations use to understand, detect, and prevent cyber attacks. Our solution is built on Zeek, the powerful and widely-used open source monitoring framework.

Corelight

Vectra AI offers advanced hybrid network and identity security, detecting threats traditional tools miss. It uses AI to identify lateral attacks and credential misuse, providing a proactive defense for enterprises.

Vectra AI enhances security by using AI-driven detection across network, cloud, and identity layers, surpassing EDR and SIEMs by offering real-time threat detection. It ensures continuous observability and automates SOC workflows to minimize manual efforts, creating an efficient security environment. Its AI-powered approach significantly reduces noise, focusing on true threats, and provides insights into complex threat landscapes, with seamless integration into environments like EDR and Office 365.

What are Vectra AI's key features?

AI-driven detection: Identifies lateral movement and credential misuse across networks.
Continuous observability: Monitors data centers, cloud, SaaS, and OT environments.
SOC automation: Reduces manual processes, lowering analyst fatigue.
Attack Signal Intelligence: Filters noise to deliver relevant alerts quickly.
Network visibility: Provides insight into encrypted traffic and unmanaged assets.

What benefits should users expect?

Improved threat detection: Faster identification of potential threats.
Efficiency in response: Automated processes free resources for high-impact tasks.
Reduced alert fatigue: Intelligent alerts reduce false positives.
Operational integration: Works seamlessly with existing platforms and tools.

Vectra AI is utilized across industries for comprehensive network and anomaly detection. Organizations deploy it for threat hunting and incident response, monitoring both on-premises and cloud activities. By placing sensors across sites, they optimize security practices and streamline their detection processes.

Sample Customers

Education First

Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association