Air Force TFPGA vs HVAC Traces: 2026 Comparison
Air Force TFPGA is a commercial industrial control system security tool by GrammaTech. HVAC Traces is a free industrial control system security tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best industrial control system security 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 manufacturers with mission-critical industrial control systems need Air Force TFPGA to detect hardware Trojans and counterfeits at the component level, where supply chain compromise actually enters your infrastructure. The tool requires no golden reference model, meaning you can assess legacy FPGA inventory immediately without waiting for baseline data, and its self-characterization testing directly supports NIST GV.SC supply chain risk management. Skip this if your threat model doesn't include hardware-level adversaries or if you're sourcing components exclusively from tier-one vendors with ironclad provenance; the ROI shrinks fast for organizations with lower supply chain risk exposure.
ICS security teams building or tuning network detection for critical infrastructure will find value in HVAC Traces because it offers actual packet captures from real HVAC environments rather than synthetic data. The repository includes five full pcap files that let you test your IDS signatures against genuine control system traffic, catching false positives before deployment. Skip this if you need a managed service or vendor-backed threat intelligence; this is a free GitHub project maintained by practitioners, not a commercial product, so you're responsible for integrating and updating the data yourself.
