Hack The Box

Pros: Hack The Box is by far and away the best platform for learning and practicing your cyber security skills. I especially enjoy the Academy platform where they deep dive into topics and have skill checks on every section with hands-on practical labs.

Cons: I am hard pressed to find any cons with Hack The Box.

Overall: Hack The Box is simply the best platform out there. There's a reason other platforms have you sign up to use HTB boxes for their training. The labs feel realistic, cover a wide range of skills, and push you to think creatively. From basic footholds to advanced Active Directory attacks, it’s been a great way to sharpen skills I actually use in real-world work. New machines keep things interesting, and the platform does a good job of balancing learning with challenges.

Pros: Lab stability is great, and great selection of labs to practice on. Good breadth of topics for learning the basics

Cons: Lacking depth in a lot of key training areas. Data mining means use custom tools/techniques at your own risk, essentially drives a gap between how you operate professionally and how you operate in the lab, kills off a lot of the value prop

Overall: Good lab for the price. If it gets more expensive or they don't offer deeper technical training in their currently limited areas, will probably leave for another provider.

Pros: Hack The Box academy has truly helped me get better at many topics that i never thought i would master.
They have insanely interesting modules with lots of practice machines.
Htb labs is even on another level, offering so many machines and the seasons are just on point.

Cons: No cons, i like everything the way it is, i just want more machines :)

Overall: Excellent experience, I usually team up with friends to solve Capture the flag events, and pwn machine together, and combine our notes.

Pros: Hack The Box is a great platform for both beginners looking to start learning about cybersecurity as well as professionals looking to build their skills. There is such a wide variety of content on this platform that it really enables you to choose your own journey and make the most of it.

Cons: It can be a little frustrating at times with some more difficult assignments, but completing them is very rewarding.

Overall: I'm a beginner cybersecurity student who has learned so much from Hack The Box. I continue to keep using it each week to build my skills.

Pros: All modules mostly include practical labs and real-world scenarios. We can get help from solution guide and support team if we are stuck on a lab.

Cons: I mostly dislike about their Pwnbox. So many times it lags. And the ad machines sometimes do not work. So we have start from scratch.

Overall: Hack The Box has a best academy module, which covers a lot of wide topics from red team to blue team, even red team AI.

Pros: Is a very informative and interactive way to learn penetration testing with very nice web based vm target and hosts

Cons: Still has a lot of data to be synchronized between platforms

Overall: An excellent online learning platform that I would recommend to anyone who is wanting to improve their cyber security

Pros: Hands-On Learning: HTB provides an extensive range of labs, machines, and challenges that simulate real-world environments, allowing users to practice exploiting vulnerabilities and hone their skills in a safe, controlled setup.

Diverse Skill Levels: With a variety of machines classified by difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard, and Insane), HTB caters to a broad audience. Beginners can start with easier machines, while seasoned professionals can challenge themselves with more complex ones. This makes HTB accessible and valuable regardless of a user's experience level.

Focus on Real-World Scenarios: The platform offers environments that closely mirror real-world vulnerabilities and exploits, which is essential for cybersecurity professionals preparing for real attacks. Scenarios reflect modern threat landscapes, providing up-to-date and relevant practice opportunities.

Cons: Steep Learning Curve for Beginners: Although HTB has machines at different difficulty levels, it can still be overwhelming for those just starting in cybersecurity. Many machines require prior knowledge of specific tools and techniques, which may be daunting for complete beginners without foundational guidance.

Limited Structured Learning: While HTB has added learning paths, the platform still primarily relies on hands-on practice with limited structured instruction. Users may need to look for supplemental resources, like courses or tutorials, to gain a deeper understanding of concepts and theories behind the attacks.

Overall: Hack The Box (HTB) is a powerful platform for cybersecurity enthusiasts and professionals looking to deepen their hands-on skills in a realistic, engaging environment. With a rich collection of virtual machines, challenges, and competitive Capture The Flag (CTF) events, HTB offers a dynamic way to practice offensive security techniques. Its community-driven approach, with strict spoiler-free policies, encourages collaboration and self-guided learning, making it ideal for users with a foundational understanding of cybersecurity.

Pros: - Highly technical material
- In-depth material
- Kind staff who know what they're talking about
- Masters of their craft (creating training content, labs, etc.)

Cons: - I wish there was a module about how to approach a module. Yes there's is learning process but it can be hard for a beginner to understand exactly what they should be getting/learning from a module, and what should be notes

- I wish there was a module about cyber professional development, I'm sure you all would be awesome at it, I mean that's why the Pentester Job Role was created, to demonstrate what HTB would expect a candidate to understand

Overall: I love it. There are other trainings, but HTB is the main springboard for any technical cyber career.

Pros: HackTheBox offers a comprehensive and up-to-date training platform for various cybersecurity topics, with courses that are thorough and regularly updated. The subscriptions provide excellent access to machines and challenges, while the ProLabs are highly realistic. Regular updates ensure that almost all the machines and ProLabs function very well.

Cons: The prices for ProLabs are acceptable, but it is unfortunate that multiple users share the same instance, leading to the presence of several tools and exploits on the same machine, making it possible to see what others are doing. Additionally, the prices for tier 3 and tier 4 modules in the Academy are significantly overpriced.

Overall: HackTheBox is an outstanding platform for anyone interested in cybersecurity, offering a comprehensive and up-to-date training experience. The courses are thorough and regularly updated, ensuring that learners stay current with the latest in the field. Subscriptions provide excellent access to a wide range of machines and challenges, and the ProLabs are notably realistic, simulating real-world scenarios effectively. Regular updates help maintain the smooth functioning of almost all machines and ProLabs which is very appreciated by all users.

However, there are a few drawbacks. The prices for ProLabs are acceptable, but the shared instances can be problematic, as multiple users on the same machine can see each other's tools and exploits. Additionally, the pricing for tier 3 and tier 4 in the Academy is significantly overpriced.

Overall, HackTheBox delivers a robust and dynamic learning environment, despite a few areas needing improvement.

Pros: Hack the box, has content for almost every facet of security that has aided many disciplines in my team to figure out skills and develop continuously to deliver industry standard work. The variety of products aids colleagues pick their mode of learning. From the prolabs with focuses on emulating real world environments to the dedicated labs which focuses more on specific vulnerabilities. This allows colleagues to view security issues as a whole and individualistically.

Cons: The Dedicated labs for the cloud environment lacks content in the Hack the Box academy. This makes the learning curve for the cloud environment a bit steep. As there are 3 diverse cloud infrastructures for the team to try, each scenario demand the individual to do deep research on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Lastly, some video content will be helpful for individuals who are comfortable with video learning as opposed to reading

Overall: In summary, HTB has improved the quality of the work done by teammates. It has made them more knowledgable and helped them take on more certifications making them more attractive on the job market. It has also helped the organization become more secure and aware of how various vulnerabilities work

Pros: the exercises are very informative on concepts. Learning a lot when I spend 8 hours with infrastructure challenges per machine exercises. An exercise in theory should be an hour of time each.

Cons: I purchased a VIP+ membership and expected to have the gold standard of service levels. I expect 99.99999% uptime of a machine to complete the exercises for each machine. I do not even have an active IP address for an hour and the IP address is gone. So one has to start over, updating files, ensuring the IP is active.

I am an IT professional having worked at all levels of organizations. I want to go back to my technical roots and learn about penetration testing. However, I spend the majority of my time, coddling machine environments, when I have paid for a monthly VIP+ package which guarantee's 24/7 access to a machine and the machine only stays active for about 60 minutes +/- 90%. I spend more time exchanging emails with junior helpdesk people when this is an issue that could bring this organization down. HTB publicizes that it is expanding, while it is ignoring operational performance. Typical of a startup operation.

Overall: The exercises are very informative.

Cannot complete exercises because the infrastructure doesn't meet agreed service levels of 24/7 availability

Pros: HTB is a FREE platform that allows ANYONE to get acquaintance of Cyber Security world up to expert level.

Cons: The ranking system as is today makes it hard to level up.

Overall: Experience has been great so far. The weekly boxes, especially with the new Seasonal competition and the ProLabs are a lot of fun. I'm looking forward for new features!

Pros: It has a variety of challenges and machines to practice. The availability of the machines is excellent.

Cons: To play with the withdrawn machines it is necessary to pay. Prices are not per machine. The prices are per month or year. If one month you do not use it, you will have to pay anyway.

Overall: An indispensable site to learn about cyber security. It is worth the price to have access to everything.

Pros: A lot available under one domain. Lots of modules with hands on practice.

Tracks, boxes, paths, it's all there.

Cons: A lot of times i couldn't access the support menu while i wasn't using any kind of blocker while browsing on HTB.
Really often boxes are not reachable while they are "online", this happened several times a week (and had to find other resources than HTB)

Overall: I like the style from HTB but their services are so often not usable. Had it already two times that walkthroughs were incorrect (for a beginner was this a death blow to the progression at that moment) but more often you spin up a box and it appears online but once you ping the victim VM, nothing happens.

Rebooting does not help, just wait and hopefully it works again after a few hours.

Pros: -The pricing seems fair
-The challenges section is great for learning or testing skills ranging from web app testing, reverse engineering and digital forensics.
-Most of the "boxes" have write ups if you get stuck
-The Hack The Box academy site has been the most helpful in learning new skills.

Cons: -The site does have an included virtual instance of Parrot OS, but I recommend using your own vm or separate system to VPN into the boxes. The included instance can only be used a limited number of times so you must pay for a subscription to have unlimited uses.
-there is no "trial version" as far as I know but the basic service is free of charge but because of this you must pay the subscription to access older boxes or higher level boxes.

Overall: This is a great platform for learning but it comes at a cost which is completely fair considering the amount of content you get and the convenience of a separate platform for learning about cyber security concepts. At an additional cost, but again totally worth it if this is your passion. Another plus is with the academy site you can get CEUs for your ISC2 membership by linking your accounts.