Network Detection and Response has reemerged as a critical security capability now that organizations recognize endpoint agents alone cannot catch everything. The Salt Typhoon telecom breaches from 2024-2025, where Chinese state-sponsored actors compromised nine or more US telecom providers and accessed lawful intercept systems, made one thing clear: network-level visibility remains essential for detecting sophisticated adversaries who live off the land and evade endpoint detection. When Gartner published its inaugural Magic Quadrant for NDR in May 2025, it formally established NDR as a recognized market category and named Vectra AI, Darktrace, ExtraHop, and Corelight as Leaders.

How We Evaluated

Platforms were assessed on:

  • AI detection quality, focusing on behavioral analytics accuracy and low false positive rates
  • Encrypted traffic analysis without decryption, detecting threats in TLS/SSL traffic
  • Cloud and hybrid visibility across VPCs, containers, and hybrid environments
  • IoT/OT coverage for unmanaged devices and operational technology networks
  • Response capabilities including automated containment and integration with firewalls, NAC, and EDR
  • SOC integration with SIEM, XDR, and SOAR platforms

1. Vectra AI

Score: 95/100

Vectra AI achieved the highest placement in the inaugural 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for NDR, ranking first in both Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. The platform’s Attack Signal Intelligence focuses on detecting attacker behaviors rather than anomalies, correlating low-confidence signals into high-confidence attack detections and dramatically reducing alert noise.

The platform was named the top-positioned Leader in the 2025 Gartner MQ for NDR. Its Attack Signal Intelligence emphasizes attacker behaviors mapped to MITRE ATT&CK rather than generic anomalies. Coverage spans network, cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP, M365), and identity in a unified platform. The Netography acquisition in October 2025 added cloud-native network observability, now rebranded as Vectra Fusion. An AI agent portfolio with MCP Server enables natural language analyst interaction, and the prioritization engine reduces alert volume by up to 80% compared to anomaly-based NDR.

Best for: SOC teams wanting AI-driven detection that prioritizes real attacker behaviors over generic anomalies, with strong identity and cloud threat detection

2. Darktrace

Score: 93/100

Darktrace pioneered self-learning AI for network security and was named a Leader in the inaugural 2025 Gartner MQ for NDR. The Enterprise Immune System uses unsupervised machine learning to establish normal patterns and detect deviations without signatures or rules. Acquisitions of Cado Security (January 2025, cloud forensics) and Mira Security (July 2025) deepened the platform’s capabilities.

The self-learning AI builds behavioral models for every device, user, and connection on the network. Antigena autonomous response contains threats in seconds without human intervention. Coverage includes enterprise network, cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP VPCs), email, SaaS, and OT/ICS environments. Because no signatures or rules are required, the platform detects novel threats based purely on behavioral anomalies. Cyber AI Analyst automatically investigates alerts and produces human-readable incident reports. Over 9,700 customers across all industries and 110+ countries currently use the platform.

Best for: Organizations wanting AI-driven autonomous network detection and response that covers enterprise, cloud, and OT environments without signature management

3. ExtraHop RevealX

Score: 91/100

Named a Leader in the inaugural 2025 Gartner MQ for NDR, ExtraHop RevealX provides network intelligence by analyzing every transaction on the network rather than just metadata or flow data. The platform performs full-stream L2-L7 analysis at line rate, delivering deep protocol inspection and behavioral analytics for comprehensive threat detection.

Full-stream L2-L7 protocol analysis provides deeper visibility than flow-based or metadata-only NDR. The platform decrypts internal TLS traffic with PFS support for full payload inspection and parses 70+ enterprise protocols including SMB, Active Directory, DNS, HTTP/2, and gRPC. Cloud-native support covers AWS, Azure, and GCP with VPC traffic mirroring. Transaction-level forensics enable root cause analysis beyond security use cases. ExtraHop was named a Leader in both the 2025 Gartner MQ for NDR and the 2024 Forrester Wave for NDR, and achieved FedRAMP authorization in October 2025 for US government deployments.

Best for: Organizations wanting the deepest network protocol analysis with full-stream inspection for both security and performance use cases

4. Cisco Secure Network Analytics

Score: 88/100

Cisco Secure Network Analytics (formerly Stealthwatch) leverages telemetry from Cisco’s networking infrastructure, including routers, switches, and firewalls, to provide network detection without deploying sensors. For organizations with Cisco networking, this provides NDR with zero incremental infrastructure.

The platform leverages NetFlow/IPFIX from existing Cisco routers, switches, and firewalls, so no sensors are needed. Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) detects malware in encrypted traffic without decryption using metadata analysis. Deep integration with Cisco SecureX, XDR, and Talos threat intelligence enhances detection. Group-based analytics model normal behavior per user group and network segment. The platform works well for large campus and branch networks with existing Cisco infrastructure and scales to monitor 100,000+ endpoints from existing network telemetry.

Best for: Cisco networking customers wanting NDR from existing infrastructure telemetry without deploying additional sensors

5. Corelight

Score: 86/100

Named a Leader in the inaugural 2025 Gartner MQ for NDR, Corelight provides open-core network evidence based on the open-source Zeek (formerly Bro) and Suricata platforms. The platform generates rich network metadata logs and protocol analysis that feed into SIEM, XDR, and data lakes for threat detection and investigation.

Built on Zeek, the de facto standard for network security monitoring in mature SOCs, Corelight generates rich, structured network metadata logs for SIEM and data lake analysis. Smart PCAP provides targeted packet capture for forensic evidence collection. Protocol analysis covers 45+ protocols with detailed transaction logging. Open-source Zeek compatibility ensures vendor independence. The platform has strong adoption in government, defense, financial services, and research organizations.

Best for: Security-mature organizations with strong SOC teams wanting Zeek-based network evidence for threat hunting and forensic investigation

6. Gigamon

Score: 84/100

Gigamon provides network visibility and traffic intelligence rather than direct threat detection. The platform taps, aggregates, and delivers network traffic to security tools, ensuring NDR, SIEM, and forensic tools see the traffic they need without impacting network performance.

The network visibility fabric taps and delivers traffic to any security tool. A deep observability pipeline serves cloud, hybrid, and on-premises networks. TLS/SSL decryption as a service lets organizations decrypt once and feed to multiple security tools. Application Metadata Intelligence extracts 7,000+ application attributes. Precryption technology captures cloud workload traffic before encryption. This platform enables other NDR tools to function effectively in encrypted, hybrid environments.

Best for: Organizations needing a network visibility layer that feeds and enables their NDR, SIEM, and forensic tools across hybrid environments

7. Arista NDR (Awake Security)

Score: 82/100

Arista NDR (formerly Awake Security, acquired 2020) provides AI-driven network detection integrated with Arista’s networking infrastructure. The platform analyzes network traffic using adversarial modeling, simulating attacker objectives to detect threats.

The adversarial modeling approach simulates attacker objectives for threat detection. Native integration with Arista switches and network infrastructure adds value for Arista shops. Entity-based detection tracks devices and users across IP changes and network segments. Automated forensic evidence collection supports incident investigation. The platform works well for campus and data center networks with Arista infrastructure, and ML models are trained on real attack data rather than synthetic datasets.

Best for: Arista networking customers wanting integrated NDR leveraging existing network infrastructure

8. Fortinet FortiNDR

Score: 80/100

FortiNDR integrates network detection into the Fortinet Security Fabric, correlating network traffic analysis with FortiGate firewall, FortiEDR, and FortiSIEM telemetry. The platform includes a virtual security analyst that automates alert triage.

Integration with Fortinet Security Fabric provides correlated network and endpoint detection. A Virtual Security Analyst automates alert investigation and classification. Deep learning models trained on Fortinet’s threat research handle malware detection. Network traffic analysis covers both encrypted and unencrypted traffic. FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence is integrated throughout. The platform works best in Fortinet-consolidated environments.

Best for: Fortinet Security Fabric customers wanting integrated NDR without adding a third-party detection platform

9. Stamus Networks

Score: 78/100

Stamus Networks provides network-based threat detection with a focus on transparency and explainability. Built on the open-source Suricata IDS, the platform combines signature-based detection with behavioral analytics and provides detailed evidence for every alert.

Built on Suricata, an open-source IDS/IPS with an active community, the platform issues a Declaration of Compromise that provides high-confidence, evidence-rich threat alerts. Guided threat hunting comes with a network-level hunting workbench. Full PCAP and protocol analysis support forensic investigation. Transparent detection logic lets analysts understand why alerts fired. The platform suits organizations in regulated industries requiring explainable detection.

Best for: Organizations wanting transparent, evidence-rich network detection with explainable alert logic and forensic capabilities

10. Stellar Cyber

Score: 76/100

Stellar Cyber provides NDR as part of its Open XDR platform, combining network detection with SIEM, UEBA, and multi-source correlation. The NDR module provides AI-driven network traffic analysis alongside broader XDR capabilities.

NDR is integrated into the Open XDR platform with SIEM and UEBA. AI-driven detection spans network, endpoint, cloud, and identity sources. Over 400 integrations support heterogeneous security environments. The platform works well for MSSPs managing diverse customer networks. Competitive pricing offers platform-level detection across multiple telemetry sources, and automated correlation reduces NDR alert noise through multi-source validation.

Best for: MSSPs and mid-market organizations wanting NDR integrated into a broader Open XDR platform

Several trends are shaping the NDR market in 2026.

Nation-state threats are driving adoption. The Salt Typhoon telecom breaches demonstrated that network detection is essential for catching sophisticated adversaries who evade endpoint tools.

Encrypted traffic analysis has matured. With 95%+ of web traffic encrypted, NDR must detect threats without relying on payload inspection. AI-based metadata analysis has become the standard approach.

NDR and XDR are converging. NDR is increasingly consumed as a telemetry source within XDR platforms rather than as a standalone tool.

Cloud NDR is growing. AWS VPC Flow Logs, Azure NSG Flow Logs, and GCP VPC Flow Logs enable cloud-native NDR, though cloud network visibility remains less mature than on-premises.

IoT/OT networks drive demand. Unmanaged devices and OT networks where agents cannot be deployed remain the strongest standalone NDR use case.