AD Tripwires vs KFSensor: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
AD Tripwires is a commercial honeypots & deception tool by Horizon3.ai. KFSensor 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:
Mid-market and enterprise security teams that treat Active Directory as a detection problem, not just a hardening problem, should evaluate AD Tripwires. It deploys honeypot objects directly into AD to catch reconnaissance and lateral movement before it reaches production assets, and the integration with Horizon3.ai's NodeZero platform means you validate that your tripwires actually work against your real attack surface. Skip this if your team lacks the AD expertise to maintain decoy objects or if you're looking for a tool that also handles response automation; AD Tripwires is detection and alerting only.
Windows-focused security teams with limited budgets who need early warning of lateral movement and worm propagation should deploy KFSensor; it catches attacker reconnaissance and exploitation attempts through native Windows service emulation that most endpoint tools miss. The free pricing model means you can blanket your network with honeypots across multiple segments without licensing friction, turning detection into a cost problem you've already solved. Skip this if your infrastructure is primarily Linux or cloud-native, or if you need centralized SIEM integration out of the box; KFSensor operates as a standalone sensor and requires manual log aggregation to scale across dozens of systems.
