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Arista NDR vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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

Arista NDR
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
9th
Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)
17th
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
7.1
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (9th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (9th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th), AI Observability (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Detection and Response (NDR) category, the mindshare of Arista NDR is 3.3%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 14.8%, down from 24.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Darktrace14.8%
Arista NDR3.3%
Other81.9%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1719513 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 interface itself is clean and easy to use, yet customizable. I like that I can create my own dashboards fairly easily so that I can see what is important to me. Also, the query language is pretty easy to use. I haven't needed to use it a ton, but as I need to go in and do different queries based on their requests, it has been fairly simple to use."
"I don't know another product that delivers as much value so quickly."
"Awake’s technology, artificial intelligence, and human expertise within the MNDR service have really increased our security abilities."
"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."
"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."
"Awake Security gets a solid nine (out of 10) based on our experience, which is based on their technology, professionalism, and communication."
"This solution help us monitor devices used on our network by insiders, contractors, partners, or suppliers. Its correlation and identification of specific endpoints is very good, especially since we have a large, virtualized environment. It discerns this fairly well. Some of the issues that we have had with other tools is we sometimes are not able to tell the difference between users on some of those virtualized instances."
"I am a very happy user and a happy seller of Darktrace."
"I would 100% recommend Darktrace."
"Provides great network protection."
"I particularly like Antigena and the analytics around the real-time monitoring of our network."
"We are able to detect a lot of things, actually, and see what is happening in our network."
"The most valuable feature has been the behavioral analytics that allows us to monitor all the traffic."
"The most valuable part of the product is the whole package, as the features included in the Enterprise Immune System are complete and effective and its detection engine is ridiculously good."
"The most valuable feature has been the behavioral analytics that allows us to monitor all the traffic."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 engineers. They need to hire more engineers to meet the demand and expand their presence. The current team is good but not enough to fully capture the market."
"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 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."
"It's important that Awake continues to develop its APIs to be able to help intertwine their product into the overall security architecture of a company, just because it is a single tool."
"The management dashboards and the meter dashboards should be more user-friendly and simple to use for easy management."
"I would like for the product to work on the endpoints as well. I would like to see enhanced visibility into the endpoints and network but this solution only sits on the network itself."
"There are still some issues with the network capturing or blocking traffic even after implementing exceptions."
"In an upcoming release, there could be more customizable playbooks or a library of playbooks to choose from."
"I'd love them to see maybe covering the cloud a bit more."
"Block attack capabilities or integration with other SIEM solutions such as IBM QRadar."
"If asked to rate Darktrace support on a scale from zero to ten where ten is the best, I would give them five points."
"The pricing is expensive. It costs over $100,000 a year."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
"Darktrace is expensive. You can pay for the license yearly."
"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."
"The cost of the solution is expensive for smaller businesses. They will not be able to afford it or might not need this type of security solution."
"When it comes to large installations, it can be expensive, but for small accounts it's fine."
"Darktrace is pricey, but the price is reasonable for what the solution does, and it's comparable to other products."
"Our customers feel that the price of Darktrace is quite high compared to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
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 Enterprise20
Large Enterprise29
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Darktrace?
Concerning pricing for the product, I would say it is somewhat expensive.
 

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: April 2026.
896,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.