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Recorded Future vs VirusTotal 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

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)
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) category, the mindshare of Recorded Future is 6.0%, down from 15.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VirusTotal is 3.9%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Recorded Future6.0%
VirusTotal3.9%
Other90.1%
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
 

Featured Reviews

Viral Shaa - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Security Analyst at Eos Energy Enterprises, Inc.
Intelligence-led security has transformed alert triage and now prioritizes energy sector threats
For the threat landscape, Recorded Future has a nice dashboard and reporting feature, though there is always an opportunity to improve how we visualize the high-severity sectors. It requires tuning to avoid alert fatigue, especially in high-threat environments like energy, where many threats seem relevant. Some advanced intelligence features require additional licensing, which can significantly increase costs. While Recorded Future provides strong IT-focused intelligence, OT and ICS-specific intelligence, which is improving, still requires supplemental sources for full coverage. New users or analysts newly onboarded to the team may need additional training to navigate the platform effectively. If we were to upgrade to a Tier 1 plan or an additional licensing plan, it should include advanced intelligence feeds that require licensing upgrades to unlock those features. Although Recorded Future is best in breed in the market, the company should consider lowering prices to be more accessible for mid-sized organizations where budgeting is a main concern.
Hanish Dhamecha - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Analyst L2 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 most valuable feature is Recorded Future's protection of exposed customer data on the hardware side."
"The most valuable feature of Recorded Future is how it detects everything regarding our domain."
"It can collect data from various sources, including social media and the dark web."
"Has the ability to conduct and build any query without limitations."
"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."
"Recorded Future has some important strengths. It has a long history of success in the market and is known for excellent threat intelligence. Its team is skilled at using AI to search for and report on threats. For many years, it was seen as the best in the industry."
"Recorded Future has positively impacted my organization by allowing our analysts to work less on doing IOC enrichments."
"Recorded Future has positively impacted our organization as we are able to cover a lot of sources with only this intelligence provider, not having to have specific tools for clear web or social media monitoring."
"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."
"It is quite simple for anyone if they just want to check some suspicious URLs."
"It gives detailed information about suspicious IPs, which is one of its most valuable features."
"VirusTotal provides 95% to 98% accurate information."
"It provides detailed insights into possible malicious behavior, dropped files, and TCP connections."
"It allows us to see if there have been previous reports on certain indicators of compromise, providing insights from other security professionals."
"The feature I like the most is the ability to see the MD5 or SHA-256 signature of the file, and also the composition of the file according to its segments."
"The most valuable feature is the worldwide malware information database."
 

Cons

"Recorded Future is a very expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."
"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."
"We can get the data of different malware active throughout the globe, but it would be good if we can do sandboxing of a file. For example, on Any Run, we can perform sandboxing of malware along with their intel about a particular file or hash. It would be great if they have a feature like that."
"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."
"There is a semantic oncology dynamic relationship between how the MIGR Tech framework needs more data infusion enrichment capabilities."
"The documentation and support resources provided by Recorded Future are bad."
"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."
"Some advanced intelligence features require additional licensing, which can significantly increase costs."
"VirusTotal has predefined reports, but there is a lot of manual effort involved."
"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 needs better advertisement and promotion, especially in the Middle East, since it is not yet widely recognized or popular in that region."
"VirusTotal is hard to understand because you need to know Google Docs to create queries, and it doesn't have documentation for that."
"I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy."
"I would like to see an improved user interface and some automation."
"There should be room for improvement, particularly in the API side of things."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in making some of the most useful features more accessible in the non-paid version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"The price of the solution is worth it. The overall performance of the solution outweighs the cost."
"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."
"We are using VirusTotal with free licenses, managing the license limits across three or four accounts, thus incurring no costs."
"The pricing is very economical."
"VirusTotal is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
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?
Recorded Future can be improved in terms of their APIs and their integration. Mainly their integration is very difficult, especially with their dark web monitoring notifications and brand protectio...
What is your primary use case for Recorded Future?
My main use case for Recorded Future is IOC enrichment, dark web monitoring, brand protection, and sandboxing for malware. For investment monitoring, privacy protection, or sandboxing in my day-to-...
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: September 2026.
915,817 professionals have used our research since 2012.