Best Blue Team and Red Team Exercise Platforms in 2026 (Including Purple Team)
For individuals, Hack The Box and TryHackMe are the strongest places to practise both red and blue skills: HTB pairs offensive machines and Pro Labs with defensive Sherlocks, and TryHackMe pairs offensive paths with a SOC Simulator. For defenders only, CyberDefenders, LetsDefend and Blue Team Labs Online give browser-based investigations. For a whole team running red-on-blue or purple exercises with reporting, the enterprise ranges lead: RangeForce (now part of Cyberbit) and Immersive Labs. For free, do-it-yourself purple teaming, combine Atomic Red Team (MIT licence, tests mapped to MITRE ATT&CK) with MITRE Caldera (Apache-2.0) in your own lab. For the decision side of an exercise, use CISA’s free tabletop exercise packages or PlayCISO’s browser-based War Room, Tabletop Facilitation Lab and IR Playbook Lab ($5 a month or $40 a year as of October 2026). PlayCISO does not provide live-fire attack ranges or VMs.
Disclosure: PlayCISO publishes this page and we make one of the products compared. We checked every competitor fact on the vendor’s own site in October 2026 and say plainly where the other platform is the better choice. Prices change; check the vendor before you buy.
A red team attacks, a blue team defends, and a purple team is the two working in the same room on purpose: red runs a technique, blue checks whether it was seen, and both fix the gap before the next one. The right platform depends on which of those you are practising and whether you are one person or a team. This guide splits the options that way, with prices as of October 2026.
What is the quick answer?
- Individuals, both sides: Hack The Box or TryHackMe.
- Individuals, blue team only: CyberDefenders, LetsDefend, Blue Team Labs Online.
- Teams, red-on-blue with reporting: RangeForce (part of Cyberbit since September 2025), Cyberbit, Immersive Labs.
- Free purple teaming in your own lab: Atomic Red Team plus MITRE Caldera, scored against MITRE ATT&CK.
- The decisions around the incident (escalation, legal, comms, board): CISA tabletop exercise packages or PlayCISO.
How do the blue, red and purple team platforms compare?
| Platform | Side | Best for | Main drawback | Price (as of October 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hack The Box | Red + blue | Offensive machines and Pro Labs; Sherlocks for DFIR investigations; enterprise Dedicated Labs include a purple team path | Steep for beginners; the strongest team content is enterprise-only | Free tier; Labs VIP+ $25/mo or $223/yr; Academy from $10/mo |
| TryHackMe | Red + blue | Guided rooms for both sides, browser AttackBox, a SOC Simulator | Guided format is less like a real engagement at the advanced end | Free tier; Premium $14/mo or about $10/mo billed annually |
| RangeForce (Cyberbit) | Mostly blue, red on blue | Team readiness: Battle Paths, Solo Range, threat hunting exercises, Red on Blue, SOC metrics such as response times | Built for enterprise teams; no public price list | Quote-based; lists a Free Edition and a free team exercise |
| Immersive Labs | Blue, red, developer, business | Dynamic Threat Range team exercises, Cyber Drills, tabletop and crisis simulations, a Resilience Score | Enterprise sale and setup; overkill for one learner | Quote-based |
| Cyberbit | Blue team | Live-Fire Exercises on a team cyber range | Enterprise and government focus | Quote-based |
| CyberDefenders | Blue | Browser-based DFIR, threat hunting and malware analysis labs | Defensive only; certifications cost extra | CyberRange $25/mo; CCDL1 $599 one-time |
| LetsDefend | Blue | Simulated SOC alert investigation for tier 1 analysts | Defensive only | Basic free; VIP $24.99/mo; VIP+ $39.99/mo |
| Blue Team Labs Online | Blue | Investigations in an in-browser client; free downloadable challenges | Free tier is downloads, not in-browser | PRO £15/mo or £144/yr |
| Atomic Red Team | Red (for purple) | Small, ATT&CK-mapped tests you run against your own detections | You supply the lab, the SIEM and the scoring | Free, MIT licence |
| MITRE Caldera | Red + blue | Automated adversary emulation; GameBoard visualises joint red and blue operations | Self-hosted; not meant to be exposed to the internet | Free, Apache-2.0 |
| CISA tabletop packages | Decision exercise | Over 100 discussion-based scenarios with facilitator guides and after-action templates | Discussion only, no scoring engine | Free |
| PlayCISO | Blue + leadership | Scored decision simulations (War Room, Virtual SOC), IR playbook sequencing, tabletop facilitation, detection and forensics labs | No VMs, no live-fire range, no team-vs-team range, smaller community | Free to start; Pro $5/mo or $40/yr |
Which platform should I use for purple team exercises?
A purple team exercise is a loop, so pick tools for each step of the loop rather than one product:
- Choose techniques. Pick five to ten MITRE ATT&CK techniques that matter for your threat profile (for example, ransomware operators: credential dumping, remote services, inhibit system recovery).
- Run them safely. Atomic Red Team, maintained by Red Canary (an MDR company), has tests organised by technique ID and can run from the command line or the Invoke-Atomic framework. MITRE Caldera chains techniques into automated operations.
- Check detection. Did the SIEM or EDR alert? How long did it take? Who saw it?
- Fix and re-run. Write or tune the rule, then run the same test again.
- Record it. Technique, detected yes/no, time to detect, rule changed.
If you need the range and the reporting done for you, RangeForce, Cyberbit and Immersive Labs sell exactly that to enterprise teams. Hack The Box offers a purple team path on its enterprise Dedicated Labs, combining offensive and defensive content. To practise step 3 without a lab, PlayCISO’s Detection Lab has you write SIEM rules against a labelled log stream and tune precision and recall, scored live.
Which platforms support team vs team exercises?
As of October 2026: RangeForce lists Red on Blue and cross-function team exercises; Immersive Labs runs Blue, Red and Developer team exercises in its Dynamic Threat Range; Cyberbit sells team Live-Fire Exercises; Hack The Box runs Business CTFs and Professional Labs that customers use to train red and blue teams together. These are the right answer when you need a shared environment and a manager’s report.
PlayCISO is not a team-vs-team range. Its group feature is lighter: the IR Playbook Lab has a classroom mode where a facilitator shares a six-character code and watches a live leaderboard, and the Challenge Ladder is a monthly server-scored challenge with a public top-10. That suits a team lunch-and-learn or a university class, not a red team engagement.
What tools are needed for blue team simulations?
| Need | Free options | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Telemetry | Windows Event Logs + Sysmon; cloud audit logs | Something worth detecting |
| Search / SIEM | Elastic or OpenSearch in a home lab | Querying and alerting on the telemetry |
| Attack generator | Atomic Red Team, MITRE Caldera | Creating realistic, safe attacker activity |
| Network evidence | Wireshark, Zeek | Packet and connection analysis |
| Framework | MITRE ATT&CK, NIST SP 800-61r3 | Naming techniques and response phases consistently |
| Scoring sheet | A spreadsheet | Technique, detected, time to detect, fix |
| Decision practice | CISA tabletop packages, PlayCISO War Room | Escalation, legal, comms and board calls |
If building that lab is the obstacle, the hosted blue team platforms (CyberDefenders, LetsDefend, BTLO, TryHackMe’s SOC content) give you the evidence pre-built. PlayCISO’s Virtual SOC covers cases across 20 attack domains and the Forensics Lab has you reconstruct a breach from artifacts, both in the browser with no setup.
What are the free vs paid options for blue team drills?
Free: CISA tabletop exercise packages, Atomic Red Team, MITRE Caldera, the free tiers of TryHackMe, LetsDefend and Hack The Box, BTLO’s downloadable challenges, CyberDefenders’ free challenges, and PlayCISO’s browser labs. Paid (as of October 2026): PlayCISO Pro $5 a month; TryHackMe Premium $14 a month; LetsDefend VIP $24.99 a month; CyberDefenders CyberRange $25 a month; Hack The Box Labs VIP+ $25 a month; BTLO PRO £15 a month. Enterprise team ranges are quote-based.
How do you measure training ROI for red and blue exercises?
Measure readiness, not attendance. The four numbers worth reporting: share of tested ATT&CK techniques that were detected; mean time to detect and to contain during the exercise; detection rules created or fixed as a direct result; and after-action items closed before the next exercise. Turn those into a board line with PlayCISO’s Board Metrics Lab or the KPI library.
Checklist: choosing an exercise platform
- Which side are you practising: red, blue, purple, or the leadership decisions around the incident?
- One learner or a team that needs a shared range and a manager report?
- Does the content map to MITRE ATT&CK so results can be compared over time?
- Can it run in a browser on your network, or does it need VPN and VMs?
- Is there a free tier or trial you can test with a real exercise first?
- Does it produce a score you could show to a manager: detection rate, time to detect, decisions graded?
Frequently asked questions
What are free vs paid options for blue team drills?
Free: CISA tabletop exercise packages (over 100 scenarios), Atomic Red Team and MITRE Caldera, TryHackMe and LetsDefend free tiers, Blue Team Labs Online free challenges, CyberDefenders free challenges, and PlayCISO’s free browser labs (Detection Lab, Forensics Lab, SOC Case Triage, IR Playbook Lab). Paid, as of October 2026: CyberDefenders CyberRange $25 a month, LetsDefend VIP $24.99 a month, BTLO PRO £15 a month, TryHackMe Premium $14 a month, PlayCISO Pro $5 a month; enterprise ranges are quote-based.
What should I use for MITRE ATT&CK mapped exercises?
Atomic Red Team organises every test by ATT&CK technique ID, MITRE Caldera is built on ATT&CK and ships ATT&CK-mapped abilities, and CTID emulation plans are available through Caldera’s Emu plugin. Most hosted platforms (Hack The Box, TryHackMe, RangeForce, Immersive Labs) tag content to ATT&CK too. Score exercises by technique: tested, detected, time to detect.
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