I love competing. Healthy competition is good. As a product guy, competition drives us to be better, faster, clearer about who we are, what we do, how we do it, and why we matter to security leaders and practitioners.
Case in point: Darktrace, one of Vectra AI’s closest competitors. We’re often compared by analyst firms like Gartner, IDC, Quadrant, and GigaOm, and most importantly, security practitioners and leaders. Darktrace is the 800-pound gorilla in the network detection and response (NDR) platform space. But when it comes to delivering accurate attack signals, Vectra AI consistently stands out.
Why is Darktrace the 800-Pound Gorilla?
No wonder one industry analyst who will remain nameless recently asked me, “why is Darktrace the 800-pound gorilla and not you?” I often ask myself the same question, so this took some thinking.
- We both started around the same time – 2013 for Darktrace versus 2011 for Vectra AI.
- We both have Security AI platforms - Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform announced in April 2024 versus the Vectra AI Platform announced 8-months earlier in August 2023.
- We both have MDR services – Darktrace announced theirs in August 2024, Vectra MDR launched nearly 2-years earlier in November 2022 and 6-months earlier with Vectra MXDR in February 2024
When I look at this, Vectra AI was first to market as an AI company, first to market with an AI platform, first to market with MDR services, heck – why are we not the 800-pound gorilla? I had to dig deep for the why and where I ended up was a difference in priorities dating back years. Darktrace has done a phenomenal job prioritizing brand awareness investing millions over the last decade to make themselves a household name in cybersecurity. We chose a different path. We chose to invest millions in to build our security research, data science, detection engineering, product experience and signal efficacy. Vectra AI has consistently spent more than 40% of revenue on R&D. Our top priority will always be technology advancement, not sales and marketing.
Customer Experiences: Vectra AI vs. Darktrace
If customer reviews are any indication, it appears customers aren’t getting what they need from Darktrace. One IT director describes his Darktrace experience this way:
“Previously, we used Darktrace. Though it is a good platform, because there were so many false positives coming through, we found that we were neglecting it and not investigating the alerts.”
Some security architects and analysts and have become so frustrated with the Darktrace experience that they’ve taken to online discussion platforms like Reddit to warn others:
“We started with Darktrace and while I was excited about what we would find running on the network, I very quickly became tired of all of the noise.”
In fact, the top two reasons customers of all shapes and sizes continue to make the move from Darktrace to Vectra AI is product experience and signal efficacy. Clearly our investments are working. The challenge we have is we are not the 800-pound gorilla everyone knows about. No doubt, we are investing more in getting the Vectra AI name out there, but it will never be at the expense of our core mission: to deliver the most integrated and accurate attack signal at speed and scale for our customers.
Making the Choice: Darktrace or Vectra AI?
Who everybody knows - Darktrace or What everybody needs - accurate attack signal at speed and scale - Vectra AI. This decision has proven simple for customers that have moved from Darktrace to Vectra AI, but it is not always so clear for the masses. Making the choice comes down to one simple question: is what you value consistent with what we value?
1. We value problem-solving over self-promoting
Instead of over-investing in a sales and marketing engine (sorry, no Formula-1 sponsorships here), we’ve prioritized investments in the innovative spirit of people to ensure they have the tools, resources, and methodology they need to fully unleash their skills. It’s why Vectra AI holds 12 patents in AI and is the most referenced vendor in the MITRE D3FEND framework. (Darktrace has 0. Yes, we’re counting.) Our security researchers, Ph.D. data scientists, engineers and product teams have been developing Vectra AI for over a decade staying true to our mission to deliver the most integrated and accurate attack signal at speed and scale.
2. We value signal over noise
Instead of selling alerts on every possible threat event numbering in the thousands per day, we sell attack signals in the single digits per day. Again, staying true to our mission to deliver the most integrated and accurate attack signal at speed and scale, we don’t measure ourselves based on our ability to detect every anomaly and call it a threat. That just leads to “so many false positives coming through" and “all of the noise.” We measure ourselves on the efficacy of our signal - finding real attacks in real-time. We believe you don’t need to detect every possible thing to find the one real thing – just find the one real thing.
3. We value function over flash
Yes, our user interface may be less flashy than Darktrace’s. (No spinning globes here!) But that’s because Vectra AI prioritizes workflow over wonderment, function over flash. The user experience we deliver aims to empower security analysts to do what they do best — hunt, investigate and stop attacks from becoming breaches.
We have a mantra inside the Vectra AI product team: The analyst experience should focus on attackers, not admin. Those same IT director, security architects and analysts mentioned above put it best when they compared Vectra AI to Darktrace in their reviews:
“After less than a year of using Vectra AI, we've managed to tailor our dashboards to a point where we just see the high-volume or high-risk alerts coming through, and we act on those on an instant basis. Vectra AI has helped me get my time back.”
“A short time later we brought Vectra AI into the network, turned off [Darktrace]. The UI is so much easier to understand and follow.”
And one security engineer sums up Vectra AI in a way that makes us proud of what we do:
“Vectra AI is one of those rare products that works the way it’s supposed to. The technology and science behind Vectra complement each other in one incredible solution that ensures your investment is well spent.”’
User Reviews: Vectra AI vs. Darktrace
It bears repeating: When faced with the choice of Darktrace vs Vectra AI, 91% chose Vectra AI.
All it often takes is one Blue Team workshop or Red Team exercise to see how well the Vectra AI Platform works. Our AI detections covers more than 90% of MITRE ATT&CK techniques, and AI triage reduces alert noise 80% or more.
But what truly separates Vectra AI from Darktrace (or any other vendor, for that matter) is our AI prioritization — our Attack Signal Intelligence.
Only Vectra AI’s unique Attack Signal Intelligence focuses on entities (hosts and accounts) — not events. It thinks like an attacker and knows what’s security relevant, important and malicious. So, security analysts can focus on what’s most urgent to their organization — what requires their critical thinking, talent and time.
In fact, it’s impossible to peruse Darktrace competitors on Gartner Peer Insights without coming across Vectra AI comments like this:
"Honestly the best NDR I have ever used — I see nothing coming close. I have deployed Vectra AI multiple times, and the support has been amazing. The architecture is shockingly simple for what it does, and produces a lack of noise compared to other leaders in this field."
And this:
“Vectra has helped our organization find the threats that all of our security vendor products combined could not.”
And this:
“Often with these types of services we are overwhelmed with information. Vectra AI on the other hand offers a clean dashboard that gives at a glance information that is easy to understand and follow.”
Additional Resources on Vectra AI vs. Darktrace
Listen, Darktrace’s marketing is great. No doubt. We admit we sometimes envy their advertising prowess. But let’s pierce through that façade to get to the reality.
We believe you deserve to know exactly what you’re getting from any vendor you choose to protect your organization from attackers. And as you make the choice, you’ll consider which attributes matter to you:
- Problem-solving or self-promoting
- Attack signal or alert noise
- Funtional or Flashy
If you value the later, then by all means, choose Darktrace. We understand. But, if your values align more with our values, then let’s talk. To help in your decision making, we interviewed several Vectra customers to better understand why they chose Vectra AI over Darktrace. You can read those stories here:
At the end of the day, it all comes down to empowering our customers to move at the speed of attackers - to find them and stop them as early as possible. The only way to achieve that is with integrated, accurate attack signal at speed and scale. It’s our mission, and when our mission is your mission, we both win.
But above all, we both win because of our people.
Yes, you have a choice to make when it comes to investing in technology, but you are also investing in people. I hope I’ve convinced you that Vectra AI is all about investing in yours.
P.S. Ready to see how Vectra AI can maximize the time and talent of your people? We’d love to personally show you what makes Vectra AI so special.
In the meantime, feel free to dive in deeper with our:
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in October 2021 and updated in December 2024 for comprehensiveness.