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Recorded Future vs VirusTotal comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Recorded Future
Ranking in Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Digital Risk Protection (1st)
VirusTotal
Ranking in Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) category, the mindshare of Recorded Future is 7.7%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VirusTotal is 3.6%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Recorded Future7.7%
VirusTotal3.6%
Other88.7%
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1607682 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Integrating intelligence within systems refines threat detection and provides enriched data insights
The integration of Recorded Future with my SIEM, specifically Splunk SIEM, has been extremely valuable. Having a layer of intelligence within my SIEM that reflects in Recorded Future, and being able to enrich the data at my SIEM, offers various angles that I wouldn't be able to see without it. Recorded Future allows me to maintain very accurate alerts.
Chinmay Banerjee - PeerSpot reviewer
Advisor Adtech/Martech/API product/project Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Helps businesses collect threat data while keeping privacy in mind and apable of detecting, blocking, and removing viruses and malware
There are two gray areas I still need to explore. I have worked with VirusTotal because it easily integrates with over seventy antivirus scanners and blacklisting services. In addition to those there is much scope to improve and add other services or integrations. The areas for improvement are that VirusTotal is not using much AI or generative AI models, while other competitors are starting to build them. For example, VirusTotal's work is based on the setup done by their engineers. If you want to do scanning or protection activities for a specific site, app, or device, that is the area VirusTotal is currently focused on. But other competitors are building AI models that can do things like left-side scanning and provide auto-generated reports. VirusTotal has predefined reports, but there is a lot of manual effort involved. Secondly, the API is very limited if I want to integrate VirusTotal with other applications. They need to build more connectors and provide support for Webhook connectors for the API. If you can't build your own connector, it's always good to have provisions for Webhook setup connectors across platforms. Thirdly, Kaspersky, a competitor of VirusTotal, is using a methodology called "gatekeeper." A gatekeeper is a security system that protects the inside of a building from outside threats. This is the model Kaspersky is currently using. You have your website set up, but the entire army of VirusTotal or Kaspersky is standing guard, protecting you from the first gate itself. Right now, VirusTotal detects threats from your domain, but it is always better to verify inside the domain and protect it from the first level when people or malware are entering. This first level of protection is lacking in VirusTotal right now. The security bridge and protection gate are missing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Recorded Future allows me to maintain very accurate alerts."
"From the feedback I've received from my clients, the most valuable feature is the ability to personalize the solution. The ability to have a customized dashboard makes it easy for leadership and management to obtain details. Intelligence analysts or security engineers care about the actions and results, whereas the leadership care about graphs and reports. Recorded Future helps my clients create reports and also determine how the intelligence that is generated is consumed. They can easily show the benefits to the leadership without them having to invest 10 hours a week into transferring numbers into a graph or into creating reports."
"The most valuable feature of Recorded Future is how it detects everything regarding our domain."
"It can collect data from various sources, including social media and the dark web."
"The most valuable feature is Recorded Future's protection of exposed customer data on the hardware side."
"The solution is diverse and provides me with a lot of different mechanisms for evaluation."
"The tool can integrate with a lot of security control and proactive protection devices."
"Has the ability to conduct and build any query without limitations."
"It can scan the dark web and find if an email ID has been compromised. This is another area that we have not explored yet."
"It gives detailed information about suspicious IPs, which is one of its most valuable features."
"It allows us to see if there have been previous reports on certain indicators of compromise, providing insights from other security professionals."
"The most valuable feature is the worldwide malware information database."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The feature I like the most is the ability to see the MD5 or SHA-256 signature of the file, and also the composition of the file according to its segments."
"I have never had any problems with stability or bugs while using VirusTotal."
"It is quite simple for anyone if they just want to check some suspicious URLs."
 

Cons

"It sometimes detects false positives and reduces the overall accuracy of the system."
"There is a semantic oncology dynamic relationship between how the MIGR Tech framework needs more data infusion enrichment capabilities."
"Lacks sufficient visibility of malware and international APT attacks."
"The customer support is frustrating and not efficient. They always request logs and screenshots that seem irrelevant."
"The solution would benefit from introducing automation."
"We can get the data of different malware active throughout the globe, but it would be good if we can do sandboxing of a file. For example, on Any Run, we can perform sandboxing of malware along with their intel about a particular file or hash. It would be great if they have a feature like that."
"At present, my clients need to be trained by me or another organization on how to use Recorded Future and how to get the best out of it as an analyst, engineer, and administrator. It would be better if clients could directly learn these things without having to go through me or other organizations."
"The product gives many false positives. If someone talks about the brand or organization name in the public domain over chats or blocks, it gets highlighted. It may not necessarily be a threat but still gets highlighted which increases the false positive count."
"VirusTotal is hard to understand because you need to know Google Docs to create queries, and it doesn't have documentation for that."
"They can improve the telemetry. Whenever we handle a sample, they cannot provide any information about a victim."
"I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy."
"They can improve the telemetry. Whenever we handle a sample, they cannot provide any information about a victim."
"VirusTotal needs better advertisement and promotion, especially in the Middle East, since it is not yet widely recognized or popular in that region."
"I would like to see improved correlation with other threat intelligence sources, not just reliant on its own database, to enhance the database of threat intelligence that VirusTotal offers."
"VirusTotal has different versions, and sometimes the parameters of the API are not very clear."
"There should be room for improvement, particularly in the API side of things."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There appear to be up to five different levels, with the most expensive version costing around $95,000 to $105,000 a year for subscription services."
"The biggest disadvantage of Recorded Future is the cost here in Eastern Europe. The solution is correctly priced for big companies who have the money to invest in such solutions. Also, the solution is useless on its own, which means that you have to invest in other solutions with which Recorded Future can be integrated. At present, Recorded Future can cost 60,000 euros per year. I am able to offer my clients a 5% to 10% discount, but in this region, the cost is still prohibitive even with the discount. If Recorded Future were more flexible in terms of price, there would be better sales opportunities in Europe and Eastern Europe, in particular, because we have more small- and medium-sized companies here."
"The price of the solution is worth it. The overall performance of the solution outweighs the cost."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"We are using VirusTotal with free licenses, managing the license limits across three or four accounts, thus incurring no costs."
"The pricing is very economical."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"VirusTotal is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Recorded Future?
I am not the person responsible for purchases, but it's known that Recorded Future is expensive, with a personal rating of eight for cost.
What needs improvement with Recorded Future?
Their research capabilities and the human aspect should be more effective. The Insikt Group covers a narrow range of areas, which doesn't reflect my needs. Their research should be wider and more i...
What is your primary use case for Recorded Future?
Recorded Future ( /products/recorded-future-reviews ) is my main threat intelligence platform that provides alerts regarding brand protection, relevant threat actors, threat groups, and intelligenc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VirusTotal?
I do not know about the pricing or licensing as our organization services VirusTotal for our clients.
What needs improvement with VirusTotal?
I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy. VirusTotal should add more details like those from competitors such as URL Void or Symantec URL Checker, which show the categ...
What is your primary use case for VirusTotal?
As I work in an incident response role, my daily task is to mitigate the security alert and perform the analysis part. When any alerts come, I check the IPs from where they originate and the locati...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fujitsu, Regions, SITA, St. Jude Medical, Accenture, T-Mobile, TIAA, Intel Security, Armor, Alert Logic, NTT, Splunk
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Recorded Future vs. VirusTotal and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.