ShieldLabs vs Sardine
Updated September 2026
Looking for a Sardine alternative? ShieldLabs gives enterprise-level functionality without enterprise pricing: risk detection for every visitor, user, device and IP address, and ready-made detection of multi-accounting, account sharing, account takeover and impossible travel with no rules to configure, from 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications. Sardine gives you risk levels for user sessions and customers, leaves you to configure the rules yourself in its rule editor, has no risk level for IPs, and sells only on an enterprise contract.
How ShieldLabs compares to Sardine
| Capability |  | Sardine |
|---|---|---|
| Overall | ||
| Overall score | 9.7 out of 10 | 8.4 out of 10 (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Getting started | ||
| Integration time | About 5 minutes | Weeks to months (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Public pricing and self-serve | Public prices, start without a sales call | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Ease of use | Results in the analytics dashboard with nothing to set up | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Fit from startup to enterprise | Enterprise-level functionality on every plan, for businesses of all sizes | An enterprise contract only, with a monthly minimum (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Documentation and SDKs | Public docs, client and server SDKs | Public docs, client and server SDKs (comparable) |
| API and webhooks | On every plan, including Free | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Platform coverage | Web and mobile web | Web and native iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter apps (comparable) |
| Platform flexibility | Ready-made detection, nothing to configure | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Detection | ||
| Identification accuracy | 99.9%, network and device intelligence | Device intelligence, with partial network coverage (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Risk signal detection accuracy | 99.9%, network and device intelligence | Device intelligence, with partial network coverage (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Bot and automation detection | Bots, automation and AI agents | Bots, automation and AI agents (comparable) |
| Breadth of the signal set | 300+ risk signals | 1,000+ device and behavior risk features claimed (comparable) |
| Local IP detection | Ready-made, with its country | True IP behind VPNs and proxies (comparable) |
| Geolocation accuracy | Location checked against the local IP and network characteristics, not the public IP alone | True location behind VPNs, plus GPS on mobile (comparable) |
| Account clustering | Multi-accounting and account sharing, with a graph | Linked accounts with a connections graph (comparable) |
| Multi-accounting detection | Ready-made, no rules to configure | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Account sharing detection | Ready-made, no rules to configure | No ready detection, you build it yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Account takeover detection | Ready-made, no rules to configure | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Impossible travel detection | Ready-made, no rules to configure | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| How the accuracy figure is checked | Published method: what is collected, how the score is built, 1,511 automated tests, audited on more than a million requests | Not published (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Decision and analytics | ||
| Fit to the job | A finished verdict for each detection | A risk level for each user session and customer (comparable) |
| Risk signal scoring | Ready-made weights for every signal | A machine-learning black box, weights not published (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Why a visit was flagged | Every signal that fired, with its weight | Feature-level reasons, triggered rules and session replay (comparable) |
| Cost of a false positive | A ready verdict with every reason shown | A ready verdict with every reason shown (comparable) |
| Analytics a non-engineer can read | Traffic, risk and events readable without building anything | Dashboards, reports and review queues (comparable) |
| Latency and real-time decisioning | About 300 milliseconds | About 340 milliseconds (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Decision Risk | Trusted, Suspicious or Dangerous for visitors, users, devices and IPs | Risk levels for user sessions, customers and devices (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Traffic-quality scoring | Ready-made | Not offered (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Traffic source | Channel and full UTM | Not offered (ShieldLabs leads) |
| History API | On every plan, for every identification | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | 5,000 identifications, one time | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Entry price | From 99 USD a month, 25,000 identifications | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Price at 25,000 identifications a month | 99 USD a month | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Price at 150,000 identifications a month | 399 USD a month | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Price at 500,000 identifications a month | 999 USD a month | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Price per identification | From 0.00396 USD down to 0.00200 USD, with no platform fee | Per API call or per monthly active user, rate not published (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Yearly discount | 20%, public | None published (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Plans and support | ||
| Features on every plan | Every feature on every plan, including Free | Products and add-ons on an enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Data retention | 90 days on every plan | No retention period published (ShieldLabs leads) |
| API requests per second | From 5 to 15 RPS | No figure published (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Uptime SLA | 99.9% on Scale, self-serve | No figure published, a public status page (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Support | Chat and email on every plan, including Free | An account team on Enterprise, premium support paid extra (ShieldLabs leads) |
Every competitor cell was checked on their public website and docs, and in our own testing, in September 2026. How ShieldLabs measures 99.9% accuracy
Why choose ShieldLabs
Ready-made detection, no rules to configure
Multi-accounting, account sharing, account takeover and impossible travel come ready, with Medium or High confidence and no rules to configure. With Sardine you configure the rules yourself in its rule editor, and it has no ready account sharing detection of its own.
Enterprise-level functionality without enterprise pricing
The full feature set on every plan, Free included, from 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications, with no sales call. Sardine sells only on an enterprise contract, publishes no price, and bills platform fees and premium support on top of usage.
Transparent scoring
Every risk signal carries a published weight, so the same activity always gets the same score. Sardine scores with machine-learning models trained on consortium data, runs them through rules you configure yourself, and publishes no weights, a black box where a false positive cannot be traced to how much each signal counted.
Risk analytics and investigation
Investigate visitors, devices and IPs, each rated Trusted, Suspicious or Dangerous, and see the overall risk across all your traffic and by source, channel and UTM. Sardine rates user sessions, customers and devices, with no risk level for IPs and no traffic source or UTM breakdown.
Switch to a Sardine alternative without a migration
Both install side by side without conflicting. Add ShieldLabs on the free tier alongside your current Sardine setup, compare the data for a week on your own traffic, and keep whichever catches more of the abuse you care about. Nothing in your KYC, AML or payment stack has to move.
- 01
Install the ShieldLabs snippet next to Sardine in about five minutes.
- 02
Collect 5,000 free identifications on the same traffic.
- 03
Detect risky visitors and users, and compare them with what Sardine flags.
- 04
Move to ShieldLabs and prevent abuse of your product.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best Sardine alternative?
- ShieldLabs gives enterprise-level functionality without enterprise pricing: risk detection for every visitor, user, device and IP address, and ready-made detection of multi-accounting, account sharing, account takeover and impossible travel with no rules to configure, from 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications. Sardine gives you risk levels for user sessions and customers, leaves you to configure the rules yourself in its rule editor, has no risk level for IPs, and sells only on an enterprise contract.
- How is ShieldLabs different from Sardine?
- Multi-accounting, account sharing, account takeover and impossible travel come ready, with Medium or High confidence and no rules to configure. With Sardine you configure the rules yourself in its rule editor, and it has no ready account sharing detection of its own.
- How much does ShieldLabs cost compared to Sardine?
- ShieldLabs costs 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications, 399 USD a month for 150,000 identifications, 999 USD a month for 500,000 identifications, with 5,000 identifications free to start. Sardine: An enterprise contract only at 25,000; An enterprise contract only at 150,000; An enterprise contract only at 500,000.
- Can ShieldLabs run alongside Sardine?
- Both install side by side without conflicting. Add ShieldLabs on the free tier alongside your current Sardine setup, compare the data for a week on your own traffic, and keep whichever catches more of the abuse you care about. Nothing in your KYC, AML or payment stack has to move.
Ready to get started?
Start free with 5,000 identifications. Add the snippet once, and the analytics dashboard fills in from your first visitor.