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Darktrace vs Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 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

Darktrace
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (9th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (11th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (9th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th), AI Observability (9th)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Darktrace is 11.5%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System is 1.5%, up from 0.5% 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 (%)
Darktrace11.5%
Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System1.5%
Other87.0%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
Consistent threat hunting and anomaly detection deliver valuable insights for network security management
In terms of improvement for Darktrace, pricing is the main concern. Pricing bothers me and this is one of the major factors when choosing a solution. When we get feedback from customers, that's the only felt need. When we factor in Darktrace, we do it only limited. We put it on where the perimeters and connections are, but still, some gray areas are left out, especially if we have multiple branches. We need Darktrace on each branch to get the data out, and I suggest having some kind of a centralized product that gets data from multiple sources to aggregate and provide the data.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I highly recommend the overall solution to other users and rate it as nine out of ten."
"Darktrace provides better visibility into network risks, allowing you to take preemptive action against risky user behavior."
"The solution can scale."
"The most valuable features of Darktrace are its full capabilities. You have visibility of everything."
"One member of staff is enough for deployment and maintenance because Darkforce is AI-driven. It does a lot of things by itself."
"I can rate Darktrace's technical support as one of the best products in the world."
"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 thing I appreciate is Antigena Email, which is for email protection."
"Setup is straightforward with the same reliability and scalability as the firewall series."
 

Cons

"A reporting portal could be a great addition to help customize reports."
"There are still some issues with the network capturing or blocking traffic even after implementing exceptions. It requires more learning in this area."
"I believe their network monitoring device licensing module could use some improvement."
"I would like to see some additional enhancements."
"The product is considered expensive compared to others."
"There is no dedicated salesperson in Egypt, and having one would help to improve focus on this market."
"It takes time to go through the interface and pick up things. If it were a more straightforward interface, then it would free up time."
"One thing I would like is for Darktrace to flag SMB traffic more accurately. Currently, it only flags that SMB traffic has occurred, but it doesn't specify which file was being transferred. This makes it difficult to investigate incidents involving SMB traffic, as we don't have concrete evidence of what was being sent."
"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a very expensive product."
"They are too expensive compared with other vendors."
"I am using a demo of Darktrace for deployment and testing which is free."
"The tool's pricing is costly."
"Our customers feel that the price of Darktrace is quite high compared to other solutions."
"The solution is about $6,000 per quarter."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
"It's an expensive solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise29
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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.
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Also Known As

No data available
Hillstone S-Series NIPS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
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