13 Layers threatINTELLIGENCE vs Mercury: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
13 Layers threatINTELLIGENCE is a commercial network detection and response tool by 13 Layers. Mercury is a free network detection and response tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best network detection and response fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, integrations, company size fit, here is our conclusion:
Mid-market and enterprise security teams drowning in false positives will get the most from 13 Layers threatINTELLIGENCE because it blocks malicious traffic before alerts fire, cutting alert fatigue at the source instead of adding another detection layer. The hybrid deployment model and zero trust architecture support mean you can integrate it into existing networks without the rip-and-replace lifecycle that kills NDR adoption. Skip this if your priority is post-breach forensics and threat hunting; 13 Layers prioritizes prevention and kill-chain disruption over investigative depth, which means less rich context for incident response teams that live in their SIEM.
Security teams running flat networks or investigating lateral movement will find Mercury's value in its lightweight metadata capture; the tool costs nothing and requires no agents, making it deployable in minutes across segmented environments where traditional NDR gets blocked by complexity. Its 501 GitHub stars reflect sustained adoption among practitioners who need quick packet context without the overhead of full-packet capture or ML-heavy anomaly scoring. Skip Mercury if your organization needs behavioral baselining or automated response workflows; it's fundamentally a data collection and analysis instrument, not a detection engine.
