KFSensor vs Acalvio ShadowPlex: 2026 Comparison
KFSensor 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:
Windows-focused security teams with limited budgets who need early warning of lateral movement and worm propagation should deploy KFSensor; it catches attacker reconnaissance and exploitation attempts through native Windows service emulation that most endpoint tools miss. The free pricing model means you can blanket your network with honeypots across multiple segments without licensing friction, turning detection into a cost problem you've already solved. Skip this if your infrastructure is primarily Linux or cloud-native, or if you need centralized SIEM integration out of the box; KFSensor operates as a standalone sensor and requires manual log aggregation to scale across dozens of systems.
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.
