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Arista NDR vs Darktrace comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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)
16th
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
85
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (11th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (10th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th), AI Observability (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Detection and Response (NDR) category, the mindshare of Arista NDR is 2.9%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 13.2%, down from 22.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Darktrace13.2%
Arista NDR2.9%
Other83.9%
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.
Pasan Jayarathna - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Cyberwell Solution
Monitoring has improved data loss detection and now spots abnormal internal file transfers quickly
In my understanding, the best feature Darktrace offers is the identification of copying files, which acts as a DLP, and it is a main concern for companies because users sometimes copy data outside without knowing, especially those without a technical background. When I mention the DLP-like feature and file copying detection, the alerts have been very timely, as we get an alert within a couple of minutes, which is excellent. Even if some developers are working after hours and copying files, our SOC team detects this, and most of the time they call us so we can identify the users. The alerts are quite accurate and proactive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Awake Security gets a solid nine (out of 10) based on our experience, which is based on their technology, professionalism, and communication."
"Having a network monitoring team on our side with the Awake Security appliance is a big step up."
"With Awake, it's very self-sufficient, the tool does a lot of the work and they even have managed services on top, if you need additional resourcing to help you deal with the alerts or configure the system more, that comes as part of the solution."
"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."
"This solution’s encrypted traffic analysis helps us stay in compliance with government regulations. It is all about understanding data exfiltration, what is ingressing and egressing in our network. One common attack vector is exfiltrating data using encryption. My capabilities to see potential data exfiltration over encrypted traffic is second to none now."
"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."
"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."
"When I create a workbench query in Awake to do threat hunting, it's much easier to query. You get a dictionary popup immediately when you try to type a new query. It says, "You want to search for a device?" Then you type in "D-E," and it gives you a list of commands, like device, data set behavior, etc. That gives you the ability to build your own query."
"We're very pleased with Darktrace so it is a bit difficult to pinpoint areas for improvement."
"The ability to detect activity on the network is very useful to us. Even if it's not necessarily an illegal activity, if it is abnormal activity, it is able to detect it and notify us."
"The technical support from Darktrace is very good, including support from their resellers."
"Darktrace impacts my organization positively by providing us with a better understanding of abnormal activities detected among users."
"The most valuable feature in Darktrace is that it gives me a comprehensive, detailed view of my network and whatever is happening inside it."
"It has helped the organization to detect any malware affecting the machines...The network monitoring and the email monitoring features are very valuable for us."
"It is very stable and easy to use."
"The most beneficial feature in Darktrace is identifying phishing emails with the help of the AI engine and machine learning."
 

Cons

"Some of the searching capability is a bit hard to use without in-depth knowledge."
"Be prepared to update your SOPs to have your analysts work in another tool separately. There are some limitations in the integrations right now. One of the things that I want from a security standpoint is integration with multiple tools so I don't need to have my analysts logging into each individual tool."
"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."
"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. My understanding is that this is where some of the AI/ML is, and it hasn't been reliable in correctly identifying which device an activity is associated with. We have also encountered issues where it has merged two devices into one entity profile when they shouldn't be merged. The entity resolution is the weakest point of Awake so far."
"Awake Security needs to move to a 24/7 support model in the MNDR space. Once they do that, it will make them even better."
"One thing I would like to see is a little bit more education or experience on AWS cloud for their managed services team."
"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."
"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."
"Darktrace requires numerous configurations. It would be beneficial if the configuration could be made simpler."
"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."
"Darktrace needs to automate the reports of false positives, botnets and everything."
"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."
"The product is considered expensive compared to others."
"Darktrace does not have any capabilities to configure. So I would like to see supervised machines and capabilities in the next version."
"In an upcoming release, there could be more customizable playbooks or a library of playbooks to choose from."
"Darktrace needs to simplify most of the positive reports. We have to field all the positive reports, false positives, too."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is about $6,000 per quarter."
"Darktrace is pricey, but the price is reasonable for what the solution does, and it's comparable to other products."
"The product is expensive."
"In the ballpark, we're talking about $30K, $50K, and up. It can even be as much as $50K or $100K."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
"When it comes to large installations, it can be expensive, but for small accounts it's fine."
"It was $3,600 a month or $2,000 plus or so. I am not sure. Its licensing is pretty simple."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
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 Enterprise21
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

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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 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: September 2026.
919,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.