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IBM Security Network IPS vs Vectra AI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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

IBM Security Network IPS
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
22nd
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Vectra AI
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (3rd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (19th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (11th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of IBM Security Network IPS is 2.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vectra AI is 6.3%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Vectra AI6.3%
IBM Security Network IPS2.0%
Other91.7%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

Jacob_Koithra - PeerSpot reviewer
Project & Program manager at Shell Grp
User-friendly and has a good blocking feature but is quite expensive
Defining the new security rules and policies sometimes becomes a challenge. Integration with other platforms becomes a challenge as well. I'd like to see more integration with other tools and technologies. XGS 7100 has an end of support for the 30th of December 2022. Many are losing support. All the products of the XGS, including XGS 3100, 4100, 5100, and 7100, support is ending in December 2022. We need to know what is the plan post that? Do we need to spend money on them? Will that be extended? There has been no communication on the website either. It's an expensive device.
RR
Consultant at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
Threat detection has improved and malicious emails are now identified quickly
Vectra AI offers artificial intelligence capabilities with visibility that can be integrated into our day-to-day operations and other tools, including malware detection tools and cyber threat tools. Vectra AI has positively impacted my organization. Last year while using it, we received many malicious email threats and virus incidents, including a trojan virus that had reportedly been deployed by someone. Our company used Vectra AI to detect the malicious threats and viruses before they could cause more damage, and we successfully stopped the threats. Using Vectra AI, I notice that server downtime has decreased significantly. We now experience only two to three hours of downtime, whereas without Vectra AI and other tools, our downtime would exceed 48 to 72 hours.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is simple."
"Signature based analysis and preventing different types of network attacks."
"The blocking feature is great; it acts as an in-line blocker, and any malicious traffic that you see, or anything really, it can block the traffic."
"The most valuable feature is its simplicity."
"IPS has helped us in understanding more about the latest threats out there and made us realize that we need to be proactive when it comes to security rather than reactive."
"This is definitely a product that I recommend, especially for organizations that want a quick integration of data from the transaction systems, with a very low cost of operations."
"The packet-capturing feature is very useful."
"The solution's ability to reduce alerts, by rolling up numerous alerts to create a single incident or campaign, helps in that it collapses all the events to a particular host, or a particular detection to a set of hosts. So it doesn't generate too many alerts. By and large, whatever alerts it generates are actionable, and actionable within the day."
"If I look at the value I can extract from every Euro that I spend on Vectra, and compare it to every Euro I spend on other solutions, the return on investment on Vectra is way better."
"Vectra is very compatible with various cloud providers, such as Amazon and Azure AD. This is helpful as customers often migrate their network infrastructure to the cloud."
"The intuitive dashboards are incredibly useful, with both the Quadrant UX and the Respond UX, so whether looking from a management point of view or an analyst point of view, both dashboards are very intuitive."
"The dashboard gives me a scoring system that allows me to prioritize things that I should look at. I may not necessarily care so much about one event, whereas if I have a single botnet detection or a brute force attack, I really want to get on top of those."
"In comparison to some of the other tools that I've come across in this category, I would definitely give it a 10 out of 10."
"Vectra AI helped our team be more productive and save time. We have less work thanks to it."
 

Cons

"In the future, I would like to see a hybrid option so that we can work both on-premises and in the cloud."
"It's an expensive device."
"In terms of scalability, I would say that it is a little on the poor side."
"I'd like to see more integration with other tools and technologies."
"The management server can be made more user friendly and also the database configuration could be made simpler."
"The configuration of this product is complex. It could be made more user friendly."
"There is room for improvement in the documentation. We would like to have more details on how it detects what we see."
"What is most important for us is to have one place where we can manage a few brains because we are based on a zero-trust network. As a result, each customer needs to have a separate brain. For the SOC team, we need to have one place where the SOC analyst can go to visit the website and from that site manage all of the customers. Right now, Vectra AI doesn't have this capability, and I would really like to have this feature."
"I would like to see data processed onshore. Right now, the cloud components, like Office 365, must be processed on servers outside of Australia. I would like to see a future adoption of onshore processing."
"I would like more integrations with IOCs and threats currently on the Internet. I would also like to know which threats are based on zero-day attacks, current botnets, etc. Therefore, I would like more information on external threats."
"You are always limited with visibility on the host due to the fact that it is a network based tool."
"An area for improvement in Vectra AI is reporting because it currently needs some details. For example, when you download a report from Vectra AI, you won't see complete information about the alerts or triggers. Another area for improvement in the tool is that sometimes, an alert has high severity, yet it's marked as low severity. Vectra AI should have a mechanism to change the severity level from low to high or critical."
"I'd like to be able to get granular reports and to be able to output them into formats that are customizable and more useful. The reporting GUI is lacking."
"Some of the customization could be improved. Everything is provided for you as an easy solution to use, but working with it and doing specific development could be worked on a bit more in the scope of an incident response team."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of operations is very low."
"Vectra AI is not a cheap solution."
"The pricing is high."
"There are additional features that can be purchased in addition to the standard licensing fee, such as Cognito Recall and Stream."
"Cost is a big factor, as always. However, I think we have a very good price–performance ratio."
"The licensing is on an annual basis."
"The upfront pricing model that we have would have been more beneficial if it had been a recurring license fee, but that wasn't a massive issue for us. It's fairly priced."
"The solution is low-cost and affordable."
"At the time of purchase, we found the pricing acceptable. We had an urgency to get something in place because we had a minor breach that occurred at the tail end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017. This indicated we had a lack of ability to detect things on the network. Hence, why we moved quickly to get into the tool in place. We found things like Bitcoin mining and botnets which we closed quickly. In that regard, it was worth the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Media Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vectra AI?
I find the pricing of Vectra AI to be one of the best we have seen as feedback from customers and partners indicates it is very competitive for an EDR solution.
What needs improvement with Vectra AI?
I think one area that could be improved about Vectra AI is their marketing. One of the aspects that Darktrace excels at is their marketing, and I do not feel Vectra AI is on that level yet, leading...
What is your primary use case for Vectra AI?
I primarily use Vectra AI for customers, and I only provide Vectra AI.
 

Also Known As

Security Network Intrusion Prevention System, IBM Security Network Protection, XGS, GX
Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Equifax, Christian Hospital Centre
Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security Network IPS vs. Vectra AI and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
906,887 professionals have used our research since 2012.