Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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

"The active threat dashboard is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"In terms of features, the data or information they collect and unsupervised machine learning are very valuable. Its unsupervised machine learning has reduced our team's effort. Both Darktrace and Vectra work on unsupervised machine learning that learns the behavior or develops a profile on its own, which allows our security team to do some other tasks rather than spending time on Darktrace or Vectra. Because of unsupervised machine learning, its detection capability is quite good. Along with that, if we utilize the integration feature properly, the automated incident response capability of Darktrace is quite useful."
"The most valuable features of Darktrace are its full capabilities. You have visibility of everything."
"Ability to see events and exactly what traffic or website the device had tried to connect to that raised the alert or issue."
"I find the complete portfolio to be excellent."
"One member of staff is enough for deployment and maintenance because Darkforce is AI-driven. It does a lot of things by itself."
"Darktrace's most valuable features are its dashboards and its ability to summarize huge amounts of information about threats and suspicious traffic."
"The NDR is good in their solution and they have NTG for email."
"Setup is straightforward with the same reliability and scalability as the firewall series."
 

Cons

"Darktrace requires numerous configurations. It would be beneficial if the configuration could be made simpler."
"In an upcoming release, there could be more customizable playbooks or a library of playbooks to choose from."
"The interface is too mathematical and it should be simplified."
"Darktrace needs to automate the reports of false positives, botnets and everything."
"The solution could be easier to use."
"It can have more integration with orchestration or event management solutions. They can provide more knowledge or research information for analysts for investigating cases and detecting anomalies in networks."
"I believe their network monitoring device licensing module could use some improvement."
"In terms of improvements, fine-tuning is the area where we have to spend some time because it works on unsupervised machine learning. It would be good if they can improve their algorithm or technical functionality to reduce the fine-tuning effort. They can also come up with something at the endpoint level. So far, Darktrace has been a network detection response (NDR) solution. It does not offer much at the endpoint level or on user-client devices or servers. There should be more visibility at the endpoint level. It would be good to have the detection and response at the endpoint level by Darktrace. It should also have integration with an agile environment so that we can have continuous development and continuous integration in the application development environment. This is currently not there. It should also have internet-facing platform visibility, which is currently missing. They also need to improve the reporting and management dashboards. Currently, these are not so easy for a non-technical person. All these features would make Darktrace much better, and they would also be helpful in selling more solutions."
"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is costly."
"The cost is moderate."
"The cost of the solution can be reduced to make it more appealing to customers."
"It is expensive."
"I am using a demo of Darktrace for deployment and testing which is free."
"It is expensive. I don't have the price for other competitors."
"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."
"The pricing is very flexible for Darktrace. Sometimes, a customer does not have the appropriate budget, but Darktrace can handle that. They offer monthly payments, so the customer can acquire the solution very easily."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) solutions are best for your needs.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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

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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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.
Information Not Available
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.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.