Honeypot-FTP vs Acalvio ShadowPlex: 2026 Comparison
Honeypot-FTP 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 running smaller attack surface environments or testing internal credential theft will find real value in Honeypot-FTP because it catches both stolen FTP credentials and malware samples in a single lightweight deployment. The free pricing and native SSL-FTP support mean you can spin up multiple instances across your network with zero budget friction. Skip this if you need honeypots that simulate Windows services, databases, or web applications; Honeypot-FTP does one thing and won't expand beyond it.
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.
