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Recorded Future vs VirusTotal comparison

 

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

Recorded Future
Ranking in Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
18
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 June 2026, in the Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) category, the mindshare of Recorded Future is 6.7%, down from 16.3% 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) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Recorded Future6.7%
VirusTotal3.6%
Other89.7%
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
 

Featured Reviews

Derek  Lewis - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Manager at Chevron
Continuous threat intelligence has improved brand monitoring and protects against leaked credentials
Some of the areas that need improvement in Recorded Future include email reports that can show unrelated content. Sometimes alerts pop up for articles that have been published years ago but were just recently discovered by Recorded Future. For the browser extension, since the main purpose is to present information regarding IPs, I think it would be best to provide us with an idea of where the IP originates or some additional information about the organization it belongs to. API capabilities in Recorded Future are improving, but there are still some features that are missing and some errors that are hard to handle and understand. The price of Recorded Future is a bit high, especially for smaller teams working on a tight budget, but it is very effective and relatively competitive for large organizations.
reviewer2588199 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Improves security alerts and analysis with comprehensive insights
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 category of websites. The addition of a file selection option to analyze files would also enhance the service.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is diverse and provides me with a lot of different mechanisms for evaluation."
"Recorded Future has positively impacted my organization by allowing our analysts to work less on doing IOC enrichments."
"The intel that they were providing us over the emails was very good. If it found any hashtag in our organization's name on the dark web, a rogue IP, or a marketplace, it would send us an email and notify us that this is being mentioned, and if we want, they can take some action."
"As a threat intelligence tool, it's very helpful."
"The tool is helpful in vulnerability assessment of zero-day vulnerabilities and phishing domains. The solution provides information on any domains of the organization that has undergone phishing or any other cyberattacks."
"I have seen a return on investment as I explained earlier, it reduces the investigation time from days to minutes, and that is the biggest ROI; on a team of ten people that use it, one request can take you from three days to minutes."
"The features and capabilities of Recorded Future that I have found the most valuable are its AI-driven capabilities that make a significant impact."
"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."
"It gives detailed information about suspicious IPs, which is one of its most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is the worldwide malware information database."
"It allows us to see if there have been previous reports on certain indicators of compromise, providing insights from other security professionals."
"The initial setup is easy."
"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."
"The product is easy to use with coding, such as Python or Java, via its API."
"VirusTotal provides 95% to 98% accurate information."
"It is quite simple for anyone if they just want to check some suspicious URLs."
 

Cons

"While I don't think the tool is weak, its position isn't as dominant as it once was. Other companies like CrowdStrike and Mandiant are now challenging them in many areas. One downside is that Recorded Future can be complex for customers to use and understand. This isn't easy for clients to navigate."
"The customer support is frustrating and not efficient. They always request logs and screenshots that seem irrelevant."
"A possible improvement for Recorded Future would be better filtering options, particularly when dealing with large datasets."
"Some advanced intelligence features require additional licensing, which can significantly increase costs."
"The solution could improve in reducing the false positives. However, most of the other tools on the market have false positives. If they enhance their data algorithm, it could improve the accuracy of results and minimize false positives. Identifying patterns of false possibilities can aid in developing better reporting features that could potentially eliminate them in the future. This recording feature tool could benefit from adopting similar techniques utilized by other tools to enhance its functionality. By doing so, it could minimize the need for manual efforts in distinguishing true positives from false positives, ultimately reducing the workload."
"The price of Recorded Future is a bit high, especially for smaller teams working on a tight budget, but it is very effective and relatively competitive for large organizations."
"The tool should improve its third-party supply chain risks because there is a lack of visibility."
"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."
"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 an improved user interface and some automation."
"VirusTotal is hard to understand because you need to know Google Docs to create queries, and it doesn't have documentation for that."
"VirusTotal has predefined reports, but there is a lot of manual effort involved."
"There should be room for improvement, particularly in the API side of things."
"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."
"The platform could improve in the areas of endpoints and networks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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 pricing is very economical."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"We are using VirusTotal with free licenses, managing the license limits across three or four accounts, thus incurring no costs."
"VirusTotal is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise14
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?
The price of Recorded Future is a bit high, especially for smaller teams working on a tight budget, but it is very effective and relatively competitive for large organizations.
What needs improvement with Recorded Future?
I cannot think of a way that Recorded Future can be improved. I don't have anything to add about the needed improvements, even small things such as interface tweaks or integrations.
What is your primary use case for Recorded Future?
My main use case for Recorded Future is as a threat and vulnerability feed. In relation to my use case with Recorded Future, it is the go-to tool when it comes to checking for third-party issues, a...
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: April 2026.
899,645 professionals have used our research since 2012.