Honeyd Tools vs Acalvio ShadowPlex: 2026 Comparison
Honeyd Tools 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 custom honeypot deployments on constrained budgets will get the most from Honeyd Tools; it's the only free toolkit purpose-built to extend Honeyd's deception capabilities with ready-made analysis and integration utilities. The tool set ships with multiple data parsers and log handlers that save weeks of custom scripting, which matters when you're instrumenting a dozen honeypots across hybrid infrastructure. Skip this if you need a turnkey honeypot platform with UI-driven configuration and alerting; Honeyd Tools assumes you're comfortable with command-line automation and low-level packet analysis.
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.
