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Immersive Labs vs Reflex Security: which one should run your crisis exercises?
Immersive Labs is the better buy if you want one platform for analyst labs, a live-fire range and executive crisis simulation: it scores 7.5 of 10 to Reflex's 6.8. Reflex Security is the better buy if the specific problem is a scripted annual tabletop, with higher scores for realism (9 to 8), cross-team exercising (9 to 8) and effort to run (9 to 7).
Editorial assessment · Assessed from vendor sites, product pages and published pricing, September 2026
Editorial verdict
Different purchases. Immersive is a training program; Reflex is an exercise. Many CISOs will need the first; the second is the sharper tool for rehearsing a breach.
11-1How do they score?
| Criterion | Immersive Labs | Reflex Security |
|---|---|---|
| Realism (22%) | 8 | 9Higher |
| Cross-team (20%) | 8 | 9Higher |
| Evidence (16%) | 8Tie | 8Tie |
| Effort to run (14%) | 7 | 9Higher |
| Hands-on depth (12%) | 9Higher | 2 |
| Breadth and free access (8%) | 9Higher | 2 |
| Pricing (8%) | 1Tie | 1Tie |
| Weighted total | 7.5 | 6.8 |
| Question | Immersive Labs | Reflex Security |
|---|---|---|
| What is it? | A multi-product platform: labs, Cyber Drills, Dynamic Threat Range, crisis simulations | One product: AI crisis simulation that replaces the tabletop |
| How is the scenario built? | AI Program Builder from a prompt, matched to your environment and playbooks | Generated from organizational OSINT, optionally enriched with your telemetry |
| What pushes back during play? | Dynamic injects and AI actors players can question | An unscripted AI adversary and pressured simulated stakeholders |
| Who takes part? | Executives, incident leaders, cross-functional teams; labs for everyone from non-technical staff to SOC | Technical, legal and executive teams; AI agents fill absent roles |
| Where does it run? | Immersive One in the browser | AI facilitator inside Zoom, Meet or Teams, or asynchronous play |
| Technical hands-on work? | Yes: browser labs, and a live-fire range on your own tools | No |
| Evidence | Decision-level measurement, Resilience Score, benchmarks, framework evidence (NIS2, DORA named) | After-action report at the end, findings traced to moments in the session, SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / DORA mapping |
| Published price? | No | No |
11-2Where is Immersive Labs clearly ahead?
Everything technical. Immersive runs browser labs against live systems across five domains, and Dynamic Threat Range attacks the customer's own stack with licensed tools such as Microsoft Sentinel, Elastic, Splunk and CrowdStrike. Reflex does none of this. Immersive also covers more audiences, down to non-technical employees, and scores 9 to Reflex's 2 on both hands-on depth and breadth.
11-3Where is Reflex Security ahead?
In the exercise itself. Reflex builds the scenario from what is publicly known about the organization and can add its telemetry, so the incident uses the company's own systems and suppliers rather than a library scenario. The adversary is not scripted. AI agents take any seat nobody fills, which keeps an exercise from being cancelled because the CFO is travelling, and the facilitator runs inside the video call the team already uses. That is why Reflex scores higher on realism, cross-team exercising and effort to run.
11-4Are the crisis simulations comparable?
Closer than either vendor's marketing suggests. Both now describe AI-driven scenarios that react to decisions: Immersive through dynamic injects and AI actors, Reflex through an adaptive adversary. The difference is scope. Crisis simulation is one Immersive product among many; for Reflex it is the whole company. We score the gap at one point on realism.
11-5What about evidence for the board?
A tie at 8. Immersive offers benchmarks across teams and cohorts and a Resilience Score; Reflex offers a report generated at the end with each finding tied to the moment it came from. Neither matches iluminr's regulatory mapping.
Choose Immersive Labs if
- You want one vendor for analyst skills, SOC range work and executive exercises.
- You need benchmarks across many teams.
- Technical hands-on depth matters as much as decisions.
Choose Reflex Security if
- Your tabletop is a slide deck that runs once a year.
- Getting executives, counsel and communications in one room is the hard part.
- You want the exercise built from your own environment in minutes.
11-6Frequently asked questions
Is Reflex Security an alternative to Immersive Labs?
For crisis simulation, yes. For labs, ranges and skills programs, no: Reflex offers none of those.
Which is cheaper, Immersive Labs or Reflex Security?
Neither publishes pricing, so we cannot say. Ask both for a quote scoped to the same audience and exercise frequency.
Can you use both?
Yes. Some teams will use Immersive for analyst skills and range work and a dedicated crisis simulation platform for executive and cross-functional exercises.
Sources: immersivelabs.com/products/crisis-sim, immersivelabs.com/solutions/labs, immersivelabs.com/solutions/cybersecurity-technical-exercises, reflexsecurity.io, reflexsecurity.io/blog/reflex-security-vs-immersive-labs · Reviewed Sep 2026