Threat hunting tools FAQ

Mars Security: Queries in place, no ingestion. Nebulock: Federated search. Anvilogic: Queries in place; standalone mode also offered. Cotool: Stores some logs, queries the rest. Vega: Queries in place. Artemis Security: Ingests hot-path data, queries the rest. CardinalOps: Works inside the SIEM and EDR. More: Data sources

Software that runs or supports searches for attacker activity that existing detections missed, across the security data a team already collects. The tools in this guide also turn what hunts find into detection rules. More: What is threat hunting

Triage starts when an alert fires and asks whether it is real. A hunt starts when nothing has fired and asks whether an attacker is present anyway. More: Hunting versus alert triage

The work of designing, testing, deploying and maintaining detection rules. It turns what hunters and threat intelligence find into logic that runs every day. More: What is detection engineering

No tool in this guide is scored as a SIEM replacement. They read from the SIEM and the other data platforms a team runs, and several deploy the detections they write back into them. More: Hunting where the data lives

Running a hunt query against data where it is already stored, across several systems, instead of copying it into one place first. It still depends on access, query translation and retention in each source. More: Federated search in practice

Version 19, released in April 2026, split the Enterprise Defense Evasion tactic into Stealth (TA0005) and Defense Impairment (TA0112), bringing the Enterprise matrix to 15 tactics. More: What ATT&CK v19 changes

None of the tools in this guide publishes a license price. Anvilogic publishes a calculator for data-lake costs that excludes its own licensing. More: What threat hunting tools publish about price

Agree success criteria and data access before it starts, run the same hunts on every tool, and record time to first result and the evidence behind each finding. Keep it time-boxed. More: How to run a proof of concept

List your sources by type, with where each is stored, its retention, who grants access and how it is queried. Then check which of them each vendor names publicly. More: Mapping your data before a shortlist

Yes. The side-by-side page compares two to five tools on every criterion, published fact and named data source. More: Compare tools side by side

Each tool has an alternatives page listing the other tools in ranking order, with the criteria where each scores higher or lower. More: Alternatives pages

Mars Security ranks joint first at 7.45 out of 10. Its highest criteria are hunt automation and working across existing SIEM and data lakes. Mars turns new threat intelligence into hunts and backtested detections that run on data where it already lives. More: Mars Security review

Nebulock ranks joint first at 7.45 out of 10. Its highest criteria are hunt automation and working across existing SIEM and data lakes. Nebulock pairs autonomous hunts with its published LOCK hypothesis framework and requires a retrohunt before any rule deploys. More: Nebulock review

Anvilogic ranks third at 7.30 out of 10. Its highest criteria are working across existing SIEM and data lakes and ATT&CK coverage evidence. Anvilogic runs agents for onboarding, search, detection and investigation on top of existing data platforms, with detection-as-code and version control. More: Anvilogic review

Cotool ranks fourth at 7.10 out of 10. Its highest criteria are hunt automation and working across existing SIEM and data lakes. Cotool lets a blue team build detection, response and hunting agents in natural language across 40+ native integrations. More: Cotool review

Vega ranks fifth at 7.00 out of 10. Its highest criteria are hunt automation and analyst effort saved. Vega takes a hypothesis, runs the hunt across sources while showing each step, and keeps detections in source control. More: Vega review

Artemis Security ranks sixth at 6.75 out of 10. Its highest criteria are analyst effort saved and hunt automation. Artemis runs daily hunts drawing on 100+ intelligence feeds and investigates autonomously, with response actions that wait for human confirmation. More: Artemis Security review

CardinalOps ranks seventh at 5.60 out of 10. Its highest criteria are ATT&CK coverage evidence and detection-as-code workflow. CardinalOps maps deployed detections in a team's SIEM and EDR to ATT&CK, scores rule health and fills gaps from more than 8,000 curated rules. Cribl announced in July 2026 that it is acquiring CardinalOps. More: CardinalOps review

By desk research from each vendor's public pages, docs and announcements, reviewed in September 2026, scored 0 to 10 on seven criteria with fixed, published weights. More: Scoring method

Hunt automation (25%), working across existing SIEM and data lakes (20%), analyst effort saved (15%), ATT&CK coverage evidence (10%), detection-as-code workflow (10%), deployment (10%) and pricing transparency (10%). More: Scoring method

Ranks follow the exact weighted total. When totals are equal the tools share the rank, shown as '#1=', and are listed alphabetically. In this edition Mars Security and Nebulock share first place at 7.45. More: Best threat hunting tools of 2026

No. Scores come from public vendor material only. We did not run the products or interview vendors, and the scoring method lists these limits. More: Scoring method

Yes. Vendors can send the page, the claim and a public source through the contact form. We verify and correct within seven days and note the change on the scoring method page. More: Contact us

Yes. The calculator re-ranks the tools on weights you set, using the same criterion scores, and prints the formula it uses. More: Calculator

This edition reflects public material reviewed in September 2026. Each page shows when it was logged, and the news page lists dated announcements with links to the originals. More: Threat hunting news