# Best Blue Team and Red Team Exercise Platforms in 2026 (Including Purple Team)

> Where to run blue team, red team and purple team exercises in 2026: Hack The Box, TryHackMe, RangeForce (Cyberbit), Immersive Labs, CyberDefenders, LetsDefend, Atomic Red Team, MITRE Caldera, CISA tabletop packages and PlayCISO, with best-for, drawbacks, prices and the tools a blue team simulation needs.

Source: https://playciso.com/blog/best-blue-team-red-team-exercise-platforms-2026 · Published: 2026-10-29 · Publisher: PlayCISO (https://playciso.com)

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_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? PlatformSideBest forMain drawbackPrice (as of October 2026)**Hack The Box**Red + blueOffensive machines and Pro Labs; Sherlocks for DFIR investigations; enterprise Dedicated Labs include a purple team pathSteep for beginners; the strongest team content is enterprise-onlyFree tier; Labs VIP+ $25/mo or $223/yr; Academy from $10/mo**TryHackMe**Red + blueGuided rooms for both sides, browser AttackBox, a SOC SimulatorGuided format is less like a real engagement at the advanced endFree tier; Premium $14/mo or about $10/mo billed annually**RangeForce** (Cyberbit)Mostly blue, red on blueTeam readiness: Battle Paths, Solo Range, threat hunting exercises, Red on Blue, SOC metrics such as response timesBuilt for enterprise teams; no public price listQuote-based; lists a Free Edition and a free team exercise**Immersive Labs**Blue, red, developer, businessDynamic Threat Range team exercises, Cyber Drills, tabletop and crisis simulations, a Resilience ScoreEnterprise sale and setup; overkill for one learnerQuote-based**Cyberbit**Blue teamLive-Fire Exercises on a team cyber rangeEnterprise and government focusQuote-based**CyberDefenders**BlueBrowser-based DFIR, threat hunting and malware analysis labsDefensive only; certifications cost extraCyberRange $25/mo; CCDL1 $599 one-time**LetsDefend**BlueSimulated SOC alert investigation for tier 1 analystsDefensive onlyBasic free; VIP $24.99/mo; VIP+ $39.99/mo**Blue Team Labs Online**BlueInvestigations in an in-browser client; free downloadable challengesFree tier is downloads, not in-browserPRO £15/mo or £144/yr**Atomic Red Team**Red (for purple)Small, ATT&CK-mapped tests you run against your own detectionsYou supply the lab, the SIEM and the scoringFree, MIT licence**MITRE Caldera**Red + blueAutomated adversary emulation; GameBoard visualises joint red and blue operationsSelf-hosted; not meant to be exposed to the internetFree, Apache-2.0**CISA tabletop packages**Decision exerciseOver 100 discussion-based scenarios with facilitator guides and after-action templatesDiscussion only, no scoring engineFree**PlayCISO**Blue + leadershipScored decision simulations (War Room, Virtual SOC), IR playbook sequencing, tabletop facilitation, detection and forensics labsNo VMs, no live-fire range, no team-vs-team range, smaller communityFree 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](/tools/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](/tools/ir-playbook-lab) has a classroom mode where a facilitator shares a six-character code and watches a live leaderboard, and the [Challenge Ladder](/challenge) 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? NeedFree optionsWhat it is forTelemetryWindows Event Logs + Sysmon; cloud audit logsSomething worth detectingSearch / SIEMElastic or OpenSearch in a home labQuerying and alerting on the telemetryAttack generatorAtomic Red Team, MITRE CalderaCreating realistic, safe attacker activityNetwork evidenceWireshark, ZeekPacket and connection analysisFrameworkMITRE ATT&CK, NIST SP 800-61r3Naming techniques and response phases consistentlyScoring sheetA spreadsheetTechnique, detected, time to detect, fixDecision practiceCISA tabletop packages, PlayCISO War RoomEscalation, 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](/soc) covers cases across 20 attack domains and the [Forensics Lab](/tools/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](/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](/tools/board-metrics-lab) or the [KPI library](/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?