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Darktrace vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Darktrace
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (12th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd), AI-Powered Chatbots (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (15th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (12th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (3rd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Plixer Scrutinizer
Ranking in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (55th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) category, the mindshare of Darktrace is 32.2%, down from 33.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 3.2%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

Luis KiambatA - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2022
Great autonomous support, offers an easy setup, and has responsive support
We primarily use the solution for IT. Customers use it for banks or construction sites, depending on our customers. We haven't had an OT implementation yet. However, we have interest from two companies The autonomous response is great. It blocks basically everything that is outside the normal,…
Ronald Jansen - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 6, 2022
Reporting is extensive, flexible, and can be custom-made in just a short time
In terms of additional features I'd like to see in the next release of Plixer Scrutinizer, I can't think of any because you can do some integration with other monitoring tools that are not strong in NetFlow or don't have NetFlow at all. There are also some integration possibilities in the product, plus there are alerts, too. Plixer Scrutinizer is a pretty complete product. There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We allow customers to access our Wi-Fi as guests, and some of them were going to restricted sites. Darktrace showed us what they were doing so we could block them."
"One member of staff is enough for deployment and maintenance because Darkforce is AI-driven. It does a lot of things by itself."
"Its most valuable feature is its ability to identify malicious connected IPs from outside and the attacks that get through to the inside."
"Ability to see events and exactly what traffic or website the device had tried to connect to that raised the alert or issue."
"A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time."
"One thing I appreciate is Antigena Email, which is for email protection."
"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 a stable solution without downtime."
"It's agnostic as far as what your network gear is. As long as it supports an sFlow, JFlow, NetFlow, some kind of flow monitoring, Plixer will support it very well."
"One of the most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer is the reporting, particularly how easy it is to drill down into the reports. Another valuable feature of the solution is its overall visibility. It's great. I also liked Plixer Scrutinizer in terms of deployment time and that it's very simple to set up. Once you get the appliance set up and connected, the customer starts to see results immediately, versus other solutions where that could take a while."
"It helps us determine what is going on with our Internet and who is hogging it all up. If we get a real high throughput or a throughput that's going over and getting dropped fairly quickly, we can tell who (or what device) is consuming that traffic."
"We didn't experience any bugs."
"The ability to view the status of the top-10 at a glance is helpful. We immediately know which link is over-utilized or heavily used... and it's all in real-time."
"Visualization of the network traffic is the most valuable feature. It allows you to drill into information quite quickly."
"There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with."
"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."
 

Cons

"The price point for the product was too high for what our possible use case could be."
"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."
"Getting logs from different sources can be a challenge."
"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."
"I did not use the AI features because they should make it more user-friendly which would be a benefit. Additionally, the solution could integrate with more SIEM or SOAR tools."
"The user interface and the configuration are a bit complex and should be improved or simplified."
"The management user interface needs improvement."
"It's quite expensive to have."
"For updating the Scrutinizer platform, when we have the actual data, it never happens in one day. Every time we have the data, we are obliged to install a new server in order to integrate the old data, and every time it has a problem. Most of the time, we were obliged to scrap all the data because we couldn't transfer it to the new server. So, it would be very good if they could improve this part."
"It would be useful if there was a way to back up the configuration information. E.g., if you wanted to deploy a new instance or disaster recovery, you could quite easily deploy and restore the config, as opposed to having to restore all the NetFlow data. If there was just a button that said "backup config information", that would be good."
"I wish the reporting side was easier to work with, but it does a decent job. I also wish the reporting side was a little more intuitive or they offered more reporting examples."
"Data retention needs improvement. Data retention is a thing where we are looking for a better way to collect flow data for a longer time to do forensic research on security incidents. By default, data retention is quite low. We need detailed data in safe storage for a longer time, e.g., for a couple of months. An improvement would be a way to export data into a secure long-term storage."
"We couldn't get it set up properly."
"The solution creates a visual map of a particular location and how the network flows. You need to spend time to generate all those maps. If they could figure out a way to reduce the time needed to generate the maps, that would be great."
"In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required."
"From what I understand it is that the solution is not very scalable in a high volume traffic environment with a large number of flows."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using a demo of Darktrace for deployment and testing which is free."
"It was $3,600 a month or $2,000 plus or so. I am not sure. Its licensing is pretty simple."
"The cost of the solution can be reduced to make it more appealing to customers."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
"The solution is about $6,000 per quarter."
"Darktrace is expensive. You can pay for the license yearly."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
"They are too expensive compared with other vendors."
"We have increased the license over time. We have added more licenses as the network has grown."
"There are no extra costs. It's about $8,000 a year. The bang for the buck (cost) is definitely a plus."
"We recently bought a license upgrade, so we will integrate more exporters. We upgraded from a 25 exporter license to a 50 exporter license. Therefore, there will be more flows, and this will be an extension. I don't know when we will purchase a faster server, because the server that we have is quite new."
"The license is per device. We have 50 devices."
"There is a recurring maintenance fee after the initial purchase or if we want the license upgrade."
"Compared to some of the other tools we have, it's incredibly reasonably priced."
"Currently, the license for Plixer Scrutinizer is subscription-based and at a yearly fee. The price would depend on the amount of traffic you pull in. For example, there are several blocks from a 10K flow, a 40K flow, and a 100K flow, and based on the number of devices that you receive the flows from, that's the license, and it is not a per-interface pricing model, so that is a very strong, very competitive pricing feature of Plixer Scrutinizer. Licensing for the product is also not based on the number of storage, compared to some competing products that are priced based on the amount of storage you need, particularly based on the retention and the amount of data. Plixer Scrutinizer licensing is based on the device, and it's more in the direction of $10,000 because, with just $1,000, you don't have anything."
"We pay our one-off cost for the licenses, per device, in blocks of 50. And then we pay an annual maintenance fee of about $15,000 Australian, which is, at this point in time, about $9,000 US, for those 250 devices. The upfront costs for the 250-license use, were about $50,000 Australian, which is about $32,000 US."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What do you like most about Plixer Scrutinizer?
Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Plixer Scrutinizer?
I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive.
What needs improvement with Plixer Scrutinizer?
I don't have deep enough knowledge to comment on what requires improvements in Plixer Scrutinizer. In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required.
 

Learn More

 

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.
Oxford Networks, Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, UltiSat, Wipro, West Aurora School District 129, SUNY Geneseo College, Bloomington Public Schools, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Kitsap Credit Union, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Houston Texas, Carilion Clinic, Banner Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Goodwill Industries, Parmalat, Armstrong Coal Company, Flybe, James Walker
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace vs. Plixer Scrutinizer and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.