Acalvio ShadowPlex vs Dolos: SDN Honeypot: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Acalvio ShadowPlex is a commercial honeypots & deception tool by Acalvio Technologies. Dolos: SDN Honeypot 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 with exposed APIs, web applications, or IoT infrastructure should use ShadowPlex to catch reconnaissance and credential attacks before they reach production systems. The platform's external-facing decoys generate high-fidelity threat intelligence in STIX format while monitoring for password spraying and brute-force attempts, directly addressing ID.RA and DE.CM in NIST CSF 2.0. Skip this if your attack surface is entirely internal or if you need deep visibility into post-breach lateral movement; ShadowPlex is optimized for early detection at the perimeter, not incident response.
Network defenders running Software-Defined Networks who need visibility into east-west reconnaissance and lateral movement will find value in Dolos: SDN Honeypot because it operates at the control plane layer where most SDN-native attacks hide before spreading. The free, open-source model means you can deploy it immediately without budget cycles, and the GitHub presence signals active maintenance from practitioners who understand SDN topologies. Skip this if your threat model centers on north-south perimeter threats or if you need integrated response workflows; Dolos prioritizes detection and analysis over automated containment.
