HVAC Traces vs Cylus CylusOne: 2026 Comparison
HVAC Traces is a free industrial control system security tool. Cylus CylusOne is a commercial industrial control system security tool by Cylus. 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:
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.
Rail operators at mid-market and enterprise scale should buy Cylus CylusOne if your network runs a mix of legacy and modern protocols and you need passive visibility without disrupting operations. The platform's passive asset discovery and DPI-based threat detection across railway-specific protocols, combined with IEC 62443-3-2 compliance support, directly addresses the visibility gap most rail teams face. Skip this if your primary concern is incident response automation or recovery orchestration; CylusOne excels at the ID and DE functions but offers limited RS capabilities, meaning you'll still need separate playbook execution tools downstream.
