CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Darktrace vs Dispel

Darktrace sells security for AI systems and agents, for network, cloud and OT environments, and for email and collaboration tools. Dispel sells OT secure remote access, connecting vendors, OEMs, and operators to critical systems and data. CISO Tribune files both under OT and ICS security. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Darktrace
  • Dispel
Darktrace vs Dispel: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
DarktraceDarktrace sells security for AI systems and agents, for network, cloud and OT environments, and for email and collaboration tools.darktrace.comDispelDispel sells OT secure remote access, connecting vendors, OEMs, and operators to critical systems and data.dispel.com
What it sells
  • Darktrace / EMAIL[14][15]Email security that catches phishing, business email compromise, executive impersonation and social engineering attacks.
  • Dispel Zero Trust Engine[3][6][7][11]Dispel Zero Trust Engine replaces jump servers, VPNs, and IT PAM tools.
  • Dispel Intelligence[8][15]Dispel Intelligence pulls existing Nozomi or Dragos device risk data directly into the access decision.
  • Dispel Identity[9]Dispel Identity adds IAL2 through government ID validation and a biometric match.
  • Dispel Compliance[10]Dispel Compliance scores live configuration against NERC CIP, NIST, IEC 62443, and NIS2 simultaneously.
  • Industrial Data Streaming[11]Secure, real-time transfer and industrial data integration.
  • Dispel OTFusion[12]A patented OT consolidation solution.
Categories
Headquarters
Cambridge, United Kingdom[2]Not stated on its pages
Founded
2013[2]Not stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Owned by Thoma Bravo since 2024[3][12][13][17]Not stated on its pages
Named customers
  • Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast[4]
  • HARMAN International[5]
  • City of Las Vegas[6]
  • Centre Parcs[7]
  • Banco Galicia[8]
Not stated on its pages
Recent news
  • September 24, 2026Darktrace launched Signal Labs, a research unit that tests how AI models and agents misbehave in sandboxed environments, and published its first findings.[9]
  • September 22, 2026Darktrace made its SECURE AI product generally available, giving enterprises tools to discover AI use, monitor people and agents, and act on policy risks.[10]
  • August 4, 2026Darktrace announced an integration that feeds behavioral risk signals about AI agents from its SECURE AI product into the Microsoft Agent 365 portal.[11]
  • October 19, 2026Dispel launched a solution for OEMs and machine builders who deliver remote service directly to their industrial customers' equipment.[16]
  • September 14, 2026Dispel opened its Community Power & Water Program at the American Public Power Association's Cybersecurity & Technology Summit in San Antonio.[14]
  • June 17, 2026Dispel announced general availability of Site Console.[13]
  • May 14, 2026Dispel announced general availability of Session Forensics with Dynamic Risk Scoring, the first capability within Dispel Intelligence.[15]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: listed, seen November 3, 2026[13]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen November 4, 2026[17]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
Not written yetFrom its own pages, Dispel sells mainly to industrial organizations in manufacturing, utilities, and energy. Dispel says it connects operators, contractors, and vendors to ICS and OT systems. Dispel describes cloud, on-prem, and hybrid deployment, and deployments for regulated utilities. Dispel describes multi-site industrial organizations as a setting for its OTFusion solution.
Last verified
October 10, 2026November 9, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Darktrace and Dispel are both filed under OT and ICS security.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Darktrace's primary category is Network detection and response; Dispel's is Zero trust network access.
  • Darktrace is also filed under Email security. Dispel is also filed under MDR and managed SOC and Unidirectional gateways and secure transfer.
  • Darktrace lists Darktrace / EMAIL. Dispel lists Dispel Zero Trust Engine, Dispel Intelligence, Dispel Identity, Dispel Compliance, Industrial Data Streaming and 1 more.
  • Darktrace is headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
  • Darktrace was founded in 2013.
  • Darktrace is owned by Thoma Bravo, since 2024.
  • Darktrace publicly names Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, HARMAN International, City of Las Vegas, Centre Parcs and Banco Galicia.

What it sells: Darktrace

What Darktrace / EMAIL does[14][15]
Darktrace / EMAIL learns from each organization's own activity and users, not a shared cross-customer model. Darktrace says it catches phishing, business email compromise, executive impersonation, and social engineering attacks. Behavioral detection extends across Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Slack. Each employee's risk score adapts their email controls.

What it sells: Dispel

What Dispel Zero Trust Engine does[3][6][7][11]
Dispel Zero Trust Engine replaces jump servers, VPNs, and IT PAM tools. Dispel delivers a tiered connection suite with Browser Connect, Virtual Desktop, and Local Application options tailored to every user. Dispel Zero Trust Engine can be deployed in cloud, on-prem, and hybrid models.
What Dispel Intelligence does[8][15]
Session Forensics and Dynamic Risk Scoring are built into the same remote access session. Dispel tracks AAL at every login, with 11-signal risk scoring that surfaces anomalies in real time.
What Dispel Identity does[9]
Government ID validation, liveness check, and biometric match confirm a real, verified person, meeting NIST IAL2. Dispel Identity works with Microsoft Entra, Okta, PingIdentity, SAML, OIDC, and hybrid environments.
What Dispel Compliance does[10]
Dispel exports timestamped evidence as an OSCAL Component Definition, plus CSV and PDF summaries. Dispel lists supported frameworks as NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, NERC CIP, IEC 62443-3-3, NIS2 (EU 2024/2690), NIST CSF 2.0, and SANS ICS 5 Critical Controls.
What Industrial Data Streaming does[11]
Dispel says Industrial Data Streaming enables secure, real-time transfer and industrial data integration across operational, diagnostic, and system-level sources. The Dispel Zero Trust Engine provides an Industrial Data Streaming solution.
What Dispel OTFusion does[12]
Dispel OTFusion is a patented OT consolidation solution that unifies applications, operating systems, and services into a single secure environment. Dispel says customers can start with a single application or data stream and scale as results come in.

Questions about Darktrace and Dispel

What do Darktrace and Dispel sell?
Darktrace sells Darktrace / EMAIL. Dispel sells Dispel Zero Trust Engine, Dispel Intelligence, Dispel Identity, Dispel Compliance, Industrial Data Streaming and 1 more.
Are Darktrace and Dispel in the same category?
They share OT and ICS security. Darktrace's primary category is Network detection and response and Dispel's is Zero trust network access.
Where are Darktrace and Dispel headquartered?
Darktrace is headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
When were Darktrace and Dispel founded?
Darktrace was founded in 2013.
Who owns Darktrace and Dispel?
Darktrace is owned by Thoma Bravo, since 2024.
Which customers do Darktrace and Dispel name?
Darktrace publicly names Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, HARMAN International, City of Las Vegas, Centre Parcs and Banco Galicia.
Who are Darktrace and Dispel sold to?
From its own pages, Dispel sells mainly to industrial organizations in manufacturing, utilities, and energy.
What have Darktrace and Dispel announced recently?
September 24, 2026: Darktrace launched Signal Labs, a research unit that tests how AI models and agents misbehave in sandboxed environments, and published its first findings. October 19, 2026: Dispel launched a solution for OEMs and machine builders who deliver remote service directly to their industrial customers' equipment.

About Darktrace

Darktrace sells security for AI systems and agents, for network, cloud and OT environments, and for email and collaboration tools. Darktrace says it understands behavior across people, networks, applications, cloud, and AI. Darktrace says its Adaptive AI learns an organization's own operational patterns, unlike security tools that rely on static rules or training data from other organizations. Darktrace says its AI learns from each organization's own business data to identify anomalous activity for each asset across domains.[1][14]

Darktrace says a dynamic understanding of every email user in an organization allows Darktrace / EMAIL to take a targeted response to threats that others miss. Darktrace learns from each organization's own activity and users, not a shared cross-customer model. Darktrace says its email security catches phishing, business email compromise, executive impersonation, and social engineering attacks. Darktrace says its behavioral detection extends across Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Slack. When credentials are compromised, Darktrace responds autonomously by terminating sessions, forcing re-authentication, and restricting access across email, SaaS, and cloud. Darktrace says each employee's risk score adapts their email controls, so protection strengthens for higher-risk users as training progresses. The Darktrace Email Analysis Agent integrates with Microsoft Defender and Security Copilot to streamline investigation and response for SOC teams.[1][15][16]

Darktrace says one solution detects, investigates, and contains threats across network, cloud, OT, endpoint, and identity, and learns the environment from the ground up. Darktrace / HYBRID NETWORK passively ingests traffic from on-premises and virtual networks, multi-cloud environments, OT, endpoints, and identities. Darktrace analyzes encrypted and decrypted traffic across network, cloud, and OT to surface activity that does not fit the environment. Darktrace then contains that activity with response actions taken natively or through firewalls, EDR, SOAR, and ITSM tools. Darktrace says it can flag account takeover, privilege escalation, and insider misuse when an identity stops matching how that identity normally behaves. When a threat is identified, Darktrace automatically acquires host and workload artifacts across endpoints, cloud, containers, and SaaS environments. Darktrace says its approach detects zero-day threats an average of 8 days before public CVE disclosure.

For cloud, Darktrace says its Adaptive AI continuously monitors activity across cloud assets, workloads, APIs, containers, and identities. Darktrace says Cyber AI Analyst automatically investigates alerts and connects related cloud and infrastructure activity. Darktrace's coverage extends across Compute, Serverless, Containers, IAM, Storage Services, and beyond. Darktrace draws data from lightweight host-based server agents or a combination of traffic mirroring and API logs. Darktrace supports security investigations by combining its detection and response capabilities with Amazon Security Lake.[18][19]

For operational technology, Darktrace maintains a live asset inventory, obtained through passive and active scanning, and immediately reveals CVEs and End-Of-Life status. Darktrace says it identifies and contains threats across converged IT and OT environments with Adaptive AI. Darktrace says Cyber AI Analyst automatically investigates alerts and correlates related activity across OT and IT environments. Darktrace says it automatically maps its models to the MITRE for ICS attacks/techniques, and says it helps organizations meet NIST and other regulations and standards.[20]

Darktrace calls its endpoint functionality Network Endpoint eXtended Telemetry (NEXT), which shows the endpoint process root cause for network threats. Darktrace says Cyber AI Analyst autonomously investigates alerts, gathers evidence, tests hypotheses, and delivers incident context. Darktrace responds autonomously with targeted actions that contain threats and avoid business disruption. Darktrace lets customers set response policies with configurable actions based on device types, user groups, locations, business hours, and operational requirements. Darktrace complements Microsoft Defender for Endpoint by connecting endpoint signals with behavioral understanding across a wider infrastructure.[15][21]

Darktrace says action can be taken independently or via integrations with native security controls, and that alerts are sent wherever the customer wants them. Darktrace extends its autonomous response to Check Point firewalls and to Palo Alto firewalls. Darktrace incidents and model breach alerts can be analyzed in CIM compatible Splunk dashboards. Darktrace enriches its AI decision-making with alerts from the Crowdstrike Falcon platform. Darktrace's Cyber AI Analyst integrates with Microsoft Copilot for Security.[14][15][22][23]

HARMAN International uses Darktrace coverage for email, network, and OT systems. Centre Parcs turned to Darktrace to protect its network, email, and cloud environments with a single AI security platform. Darktrace says organizations across all sizes and industries rely on it to get proactive about cyber security.[14][16][20]

Darktrace on the record

Sources

Darktrace full record

  1. [1]ProductsDarktrace · darktrace.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Darktrace named technology pioneer by world economic forumDarktrace · darktrace.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Darktrace announces formal completion of its acquisition by thoma bravoDarktrace · darktrace.com · published October 1, 2024 · Tier A
  4. [4]Coca cola beverages northeastDarktrace · darktrace.com · undated page, accessed October 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Harman internationalDarktrace · darktrace.com · undated page, accessed October 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]City of las vegasDarktrace · darktrace.com · undated page, accessed October 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Center parcs darktraceDarktrace · darktrace.com · undated page, accessed October 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Banco galiciaDarktrace · darktrace.com · undated page, accessed October 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Darktrace launches signal labs to research emerging risks of enterprise ai agentsDarktrace · darktrace.com · published September 24, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Darktrace extends behavioral security with general availability of darktrace secure aiDarktrace · darktrace.com · published September 22, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Darktrace among first cybersecurity companies selected to integrate risk signals into microsoft agent 365Darktrace · darktrace.com · published August 4, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Darktrace | The Essential AI Cybersecurity PlatformDarktrace · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Darktrace / HYBRID NETWORK Reviews & Product Details - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier C
  14. [14]AI Cyber Security Solutions | Harden Defenses Inside & OutDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Microsoft Azure Security & Compliance | Security ServicesDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]AI-Based Email Security Software | Email Threat ProtectionDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Network Security Management | AI Network Security ProtectionDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Cloud Security Solutions | AI for Cloud Cyber SecurityDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]AWS Data Loss Prevention, Security Compliance, & ProtectionDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  20. [20]Operational Technology (OT) Cyber Security SolutionsDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  21. [21]AI Endpoint Security | Cyber Security Endpoint Protection SuiteDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  22. [22]Network Security Integrations | Darktrace/NetworkDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  23. [23]Integrations | Darktrace/EndpointDarktrace · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A

Dispel full record

  1. [1]dispel.comDispel · dispel.com · undated page, accessed October 7, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Dispel celebrates 2025 fastest growing cybersecurity company as ot secure remote access demand growsDispel · dispel.com · published March 26, 2025 · Tier A
  3. [3]Press dispel fedramp 20x zero trust governmentDispel · dispel.com · published July 22, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]OT Secure Remote Access for Industrial Operations | DispelDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Secure Remote Access for ICS & OT | Dispel SolutionsDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Dispel Zero Trust Engine | OT Secure Remote Access PlatformDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Wicket Industrial Gateway | DispelDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Continuous Risk Scoring for OT Secure Remote Access | DispelDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Identity Verification for OT Remote Access | Dispel IdentityDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Continuous Compliance for OT Secure Remote Access | DispelDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Industrial Data Streaming for OT & ICS | Real-Time Secure Data Transfer | Dispel SolutionsDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]OTFusion — OT Digital Transformation & Multi-Site Consolidation | DispelDispel · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Dispel Launches Site Console, Delivering On-Premises OT Remote Access for NERC CIP and Air-Gapped EnvironmentsDispel · published June 17, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Dispel Launches Community Power & Water Program at APPA Cybersecurity & Technology SummitDispel · published September 14, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Dispel Launches Session Forensics, Bringing Real-Time Dynamic Risk Scoring to OT Remote Access as AI Threats EscalateDispel · published May 14, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Dispel Introduces Dispel Zero Trust Engine for OEMs to Standardize Secure Remote Service at ScaleDispel · published October 19, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Dispel Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier C
  18. [18]Features | DispelDispel · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]Wicket Hardware Form Factor | DispelDispel · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  20. [20]Wicket Software Form Factor | DispelDispel · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A

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