Acalvio ShadowPlex Cloud Security vs DCEPT: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Acalvio ShadowPlex Cloud Security is a commercial honeypots & deception tool by Acalvio Technologies. DCEPT is a free honeypots & deception tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best honeypots & deception fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, company size fit, deployment model, here is our conclusion:
Acalvio ShadowPlex Cloud Security
Enterprise and mid-market teams managing multi-cloud infrastructure should adopt ShadowPlex Cloud Security if detecting lateral movement and privilege escalation in cloud identities is your weakest detection layer. Agentless deployment via native cloud APIs means you're live in AWS, Azure, and GCP without touching workloads, and the honeytoken approach catches attackers during reconnaissance when they're still gathering credentials rather than after breach. This tool prioritizes detection and intent capture over response automation, so it's less valuable for teams already confident in their cloud identity monitoring or those expecting the platform to enforce remediation workflows.
Security teams protecting Active Directory in mid-market environments will get immediate value from DCEPT because it catches privilege escalation attempts that your existing monitoring likely misses, using honeytokens as tripwires rather than waiting for lateral movement to surface. The tool is free and deploys in minutes without agents, making it a practical complement to your Detect controls even if your EDR is already in place. Skip DCEPT if your organization needs centralized deception management across multiple directories or cloud IAM platforms; this is purpose-built for AD and doesn't scale into enterprise multi-cloud environments.
