Acalvio ShadowPlex Cloud Security vs Impost: 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. Impost 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 building active defense capabilities will find Impost valuable for its honeypot deployment speed and packet inspection depth; the free pricing removes procurement friction for teams piloting deception tactics before committing budget to commercial platforms. The tool's sniffer component catches evasion techniques that passive monitoring misses, particularly useful for validating detection rules before production rollout. Skip Impost if you need managed threat intelligence feeds or automated response workflows; this is a hands-on auditing tool, not a detection platform.
