Armis vs Cylera (2026)
A proven horizontal platform against the most elegant idea in the lane. Armis covers everything, IT, OT, IoT, IoMT, cloud, and code across many industries, offers the only on premise option in the category, and holds consecutive Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader placement, but medical device security is one of five products and its detection story stays at platform level. Cylera solves the constraint that defines this category: medical devices cannot be actively scanned while attached to a patient, so its patented Digital Twin emulates each device from network traffic and probes the replica out of band, earning A grades on AI centrality and model transparency that Armis does not hold. What Cylera lacks is evidence, graded C, with no independent benchmark located against Armis's analyst recognition. If your failure mode is breadth across asset classes and industries with deployment flexibility, start with Armis. If your failure mode is rigorous vulnerability testing that never touches live equipment, start with Cylera, and ask it to show twin fidelity against real device behaviour.
- The widest coverage and the only deployment choice: IT, OT, IoT, IoMT, cloud, and code across many industries with on premise, cloud, and hybrid options, graded A on both setting and deployment, where Cylera is healthcare only and cloud based.
- The strongest analyst validation in the lane: named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CPS Protection Platforms for the second consecutive year, against Cylera, which no independent benchmark or KLAS score was located for.
- Proven scale: correlates device context, behavioural anomalies, vulnerability intelligence, and business impact into a unified risk model across a large multi industry install base.
- The most rigorous non invasive testing in the category: the patented Digital Twin emulates each device from network traffic and probes the replica out of band, so vulnerability testing never touches equipment attached to a patient, graded A on model transparency where Armis grades C.
- The AI does the primary work: constructing a behavioural replica accurate enough that probing it yields valid findings about the real device is a substantive modelling problem, and the platform classifies zero day devices it has never seen, graded A on AI centrality against Armis at B.
- Purpose built for hospitals rather than adapted from a general IoT product, with device utilisation analytics that also serve biomedical engineering and capital planning.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Armis and Cylera are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Armis | Cylera |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Healthcare Cybersecurity | Healthcare Cybersecurity |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | New York, New York, United States |
| Website | armis.com | cylera.com |
Side by Side
Each record in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph states what the AI Health Index verified about the vendor, with the caveats attached. Generated from this pair’s live capability grades, so it moves when a grade moves.
The AI Health Index awards Armis its top capability grade on several axes, including Security Certifications and Trust Center, EHR and Interoperability Depth and Deployment Model and Data Residency. Set against Cylera, Armis grades higher on several axes, including Model Supply Chain Disclosure, Clinical and Operational Evidence and Security Certifications and Trust Center. Its thinnest published disclosure sits on AI Liability and Recourse. Grades reflect evidence the AI Health Index could verify at the last review, so a low grade records disclosure the vendor has not published rather than a capability it has been shown to lack.
Source: AI Health Index, July 2026
The AI Health Index awards Cylera its top capability grade on AI Centrality, Model and Technology Transparency and Deployment Model and Data Residency. Set against Armis, Cylera grades higher on AI Centrality, Model and Technology Transparency and AI Liability and Recourse. Grades reflect evidence the AI Health Index could verify at the last review, so a low grade records disclosure the vendor has not published rather than a capability it has been shown to lack.
Source: AI Health Index, July 2026
Questions buyers ask
Should we choose Armis or Cylera?
On the axes where the AI Health Index separates them, Armis grades higher on several axes, including Model Supply Chain Disclosure, Clinical and Operational Evidence and Security Certifications and Trust Center, and Cylera grades higher on AI Centrality, Model and Technology Transparency and AI Liability and Recourse. Armis leads on the greater share of scored axes, but the split means the decision turns on which constraint is binding rather than on an overall winner.
Where do Armis and Cylera differ most?
The widest separation the AI Health Index records between Armis and Cylera is on Security Certifications and Trust Center, where Armis grades A and Cylera grades C. That axis sits in the Regulatory and Compliance group, so it should carry the most weight for a buyer whose binding constraint is where regulatory exposure sits and who carries it.
Where do Armis and Cylera grade the same?
The AI Health Index grades Armis and Cylera the same on several axes, including Autonomy and Oversight Model, AI Safety and PHI Stewardship and HIPAA and BAA Posture. Neither holds an advantage the index can evidence on those axes, so they should not carry weight in a selection between these two.
What have Armis and Cylera not disclosed?
At the last review, at least one of Armis and Cylera published thin or absent detail on AI Liability and Recourse. The AI Health Index treats an absent disclosure as a gap in the public record rather than a failure of the product, so these are the axes to get in writing during diligence instead of inferring from the grade.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Healthcare Administrative Automation page.
The grades split by what each vendor is: Armis is a horizontal platform graded B on AI centrality because medical device security is one of five products, and C on model transparency for platform level language without a named detection methodology; Cylera grades A on both because the Digital Twin is a specific, patented, publicly readable mechanism and the ML is the whole product.
The reverse caution is Cylera's evidence: graded C, with no KLAS score or independent benchmark located and Gartner reviewers describing its vulnerability assessment as still maturing, where Armis holds consecutive Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader placement. The single technical question to press Cylera on is twin fidelity, since findings only transfer if the replica faithfully matches the device. Neither publishes a security attestation, shared across the category. Armis has announced a planned ServiceNow acquisition expected in the second half of 2026. Neither publishes pricing.