hived vs Acalvio ShadowPlex: 2026 Comparison
hived is a free honeypots & deception tool. Acalvio ShadowPlex is a commercial honeypots & deception tool by Acalvio Technologies. 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:
Security teams building internal honeypot networks on minimal budget will find Hived valuable for its simplicity; it requires no licensing overhead and deploys as straightforward deception infrastructure. The tool's open-source availability on GitHub means you can audit the code yourself and avoid vendor lock-in, a real advantage when your honeypot strategy needs to evolve with your threat model. Skip this if you need commercial support, managed detection services, or integration with your SIEM; Hived is a bare-bones trap, not a detection platform.
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.
