Comparison of @Caldera Official $ERA with other Red Team tools

Caldera $ERA is an open-source attack simulation platform developed by MITRE, notable for its ability to automate attack scenarios based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Compared to other Red Team tools, Caldera offers advantages in cost, customization, and integration capabilities, but it also has certain limitations.

1. Caldera vs Metasploit

Metasploit is a famous vulnerability exploitation framework, focusing on the exploitation and post-exploitation stages. Meanwhile, Caldera leans towards simulating the entire attack chain according to each tactic/technique of ATT&CK. Metasploit excels in the number of available exploit modules but requires more manual operations, while Caldera automates better and is suitable for testing the detection capabilities of defense systems.

2. Caldera vs Cobalt Strike

Cobalt Strike is a popular commercial tool for Red Team and Threat Emulation, with powerful command & control (C2) capabilities, supporting stealth and advanced techniques. Compared to Cobalt Strike, Caldera is free and open-source, but its evasion capabilities and stability for large-scale deployment are still lacking. Cobalt Strike is often used in professional Red Team environments, while Caldera is more suitable for research, training, and periodic testing.

3. Caldera vs Atomic Red Team

Atomic Red Team (ART) provides 'atomic tests' — a set of small commands to test specific ATT&CK techniques. ART is lightweight, easy to run, but lacks C2 mechanisms or seamless attack scenarios. Caldera, on the other hand, provides an automated environment, linking multiple techniques into a complete attack chain, helping to assess defenses more realistically.

Conclusion

Caldera is an excellent choice for organizations looking to implement Red Team at a low cost, easily customizable, and based on the ATT&CK framework. However, for high demands in evasion, advanced exploitation, and realistic simulation environments, commercial tools like Cobalt Strike or Metasploit still hold certain advantages.
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