The Range Desk · Vendor pages read September and October 2026
Cyber range, hands-on labs or crisis exercises: which training does your team need?
Short answer
Security training comes in four kinds that train different people for different things: cyber ranges and hands-on labs build technical skill, tabletop and crisis simulation trains decisions under pressure, and awareness training reaches every employee. The right one depends on who you are training, what went wrong last time, who needs proof, your budget and the time people can give. The five-question finder weighs the four types and shows which of 12 platforms' published facts match, with no scores or rankings.
By The Range Desk · Cyber Range Compare · Published 2026-10-11 · Updated 2026-10-13
Desk research from public vendor, standards and regulator pages read on 27 September, 11 October and 13 October 2026. Profiles follow our published method; we did not run the products.
What are the four kinds of security training?
- RANGE
Cyber range
A team detects and responds to a live simulated attack in a realistic environment, using real security tools.
6 of 12 platforms here sell it, 2 with a condition
Read the RANGE guide - LABS
Hands-on lab libraries
One person works through a guided technical task in a browser lab, picked from a library of hundreds or thousands.
5 of 12 platforms here sell it, 0 with a condition
Read the LABS guide - CRISIS
Tabletop and crisis simulation
The people who own decisions in an incident work through a scenario and decide what to do, from a scripted discussion to an adaptive simulation.
10 of 12 platforms here sell it, 2 with a condition
Read the CRISIS guide - AWARE
Awareness training
Short modules and simulated phishing that teach every employee to spot and report threats.
3 of 12 platforms here sell it, 2 with a condition
Read the AWARE guide
Which kind trains what?
| Training type | Who it is for | What it builds | What it leaves behind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cyber range | SOC and incident response teams | Detection and response on real tools, as a team, under a live attack | Team results, timelines and, on some platforms, readiness scores |
| Hands-on lab libraries | Individual analysts, engineers and learners | One technical skill at a time, at the keyboard | Completion records and, on some platforms, certificates |
| Tabletop and crisis simulation | Incident commanders, executives, legal, communications and responders | Decisions, escalation and coordination when information is incomplete | An after-action report, a decision record and a list of fixes |
| Awareness training | Every employee | Spotting and reporting phishing and other everyday threats | Completion and phishing-test records |
What does the finder ask?
- 01Who is being trained? Pick the group whose gap matters most right now.
- 02What should they get better at? Think about what went wrong, or nearly went wrong, last time.
- 03Does anyone outside the team need proof? Auditors, the board, insurers or a regulator.
- 04What is the budget position? Budget checks count double for platforms, because budget is usually a hard limit.
- 05How much time can people give? Per person, realistically.
Example: an incident response team that needs both technical skills and better decisions, has auditors asking for evidence, has budget agreed and can give an hour or two per exercise.
- Start here
- Tabletop and crisis simulation 8 pts
- Also relevant
- Cyber range
- First in fit order
- Immersive Labs
Which platforms does the finder cover?
- Filled target: the platform sells this training type on the pages we read
- Hatched target: sold with a condition (an add-on, an adjacent product, or part of the type)
- Dashed target: not in our sources (it may exist; we did not find it)
| Platform | Lanes | Free start | Published price | Executives take part |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reflex Security | Not in our sources | Not published | Matches | |
| BreachRx | Partly | Not published | Matches | |
| Cloud Range | Not in our sources | Not published | Partly | |
| Conducttr | Not in our sources | Raven £11,950, Hawk £16,465, Osprey £21,000 and Eagle £25,725 a year, each for up to 40 participants per session, GBP excluding tax. | Matches | |
| Cyberbit | Not in our sources | Not published | Partly | |
| Cytactic | Not in our sources | Not published | Partly | |
| Hack The Box | Matches | Professional: $250 per seat per month or $2,500 per seat per year. | Matches | |
| iluminr | Not in our sources | Not published | Matches | |
| Immersive Labs | Not in our sources | Not published | Matches | |
| KnowBe4 | Partly | SAT Foundation from $2.40 (25–50 seats) to $1.63 (501–1,000 seats) and SAT Advanced from $3.75 to $2.79, per seat per month, 3-year term, US MSRP as of May 2026, taxes excluded. | Not in our sources | |
| SimSpace | Not in our sources | Not published | Not in our sources | |
| TryHackMe | Matches | Business: Foundation $99 per month and Advanced $199 per month; Enterprise on request. | Partly |
Where does Reflex Security not fit?
Reflex Security leads our platform lists, so we say early where it does not fit. Reflex sells one training type, crisis simulation. It is not a cyber range and not a hands-on lab platform: technical players can query simulated logs, endpoint telemetry and network traffic in its Investigation Console, but there is no lab library and no live-fire range, so if your gap is technical skill, Cloud Range, Cyberbit, Hack The Box, Immersive Labs, SimSpace and TryHackMe are the platforms to look at. It is not awareness training either. Reflex publishes no price and has no free tier, so a team that needs a price before a sales call or wants to start free will see other platforms first in the finder.
How is this different from a ranking?
We do not score or rank platforms. The finder applies published rules to your answers: first to weigh the four training types, then to check each platform's published facts against your constraints. Two teams with different answers see different orders, and platforms with the same fit are shown as equals. The rules are the same for every platform and are written out on How the matching works.
Where to go next
- Training type finder
Answer five questions
- Tabletop and crisis simulation
When decisions, not keystrokes, are the gap
- Cyber range
When a team needs to practise on real tools
- Range terms
Plain definitions of range and exercise terms
Questions people ask
What is the difference between a cyber range and hands-on labs?
A cyber range puts a team into a realistic environment under a live simulated attack, usually with real security tools, and tests how they detect and respond together. Hands-on labs are shorter, guided tasks one person completes in a browser to learn a specific skill. Many platforms sell both; they train different things.
Is a tabletop exercise the same as a crisis simulation?
They overlap. A tabletop is a discussion-based exercise in which decision-makers talk through a scenario. A crisis simulation adds pressure and change as it runs: new information arrives, simulated stakeholders push back, and on some platforms the scenario adapts to each decision. Both train decisions rather than keyboard skills.
Does this site rank training platforms?
No. There are no scores, totals or winners. Platforms are listed with Reflex Security first and the rest alphabetically, or in order of fit to your finder answers, and equal fits are shown as equals.