Alternatives & comparisons
Honorlock Alternatives for the AI Cheating Era (2026)
Honorlock combines browser lockdown with webcam monitoring. It does visible behavior well. But Cluely isn't visible. It's an OS-layer overlay that excludes itself from screen-capture APIs. Here is what sits below Honorlock's layer.
Other exam-security alternatives to consider
No single tool covers every layer. Here is how the rest of the lockdown-browser and proctoring-service field compares on the same AI-cheating threat model.
What Honorlock Does
Honorlock combines browser lockdown with webcam monitoring, AI behavior analysis, and live proctor support. It's a multi-signal system that works well for visible behavior anomalies: second-person presence, phone use, obvious environmental cheating. It has deep LMS integration and strong market position in higher education.
The Name-List Trap
Proctoring vendors have started naming Cluely in their product documentation, whether by blocking it from launching or by listing it among detected tools. That is real progress against one named tool, and it is also the whole problem. A control keyed to a tool's identity only catches what it has already been told about. Rename the binary, ship an open-source fork, or switch to a different invisible overlay (Pluely, InterviewCoder, the next release), and the name no longer matches. The cheating technique is unchanged; the label moved.
Aiseptor does not chase names. Every overlay that hides from screen-share has to set the same screen-capture-exclusion flag at the OS layer, so Aiseptor flags that invariant, catching renamed and never-before-seen tools the same way it catches Cluely. The same holds for on-device LLMs: a model running in local memory produces no screen artifact, no webcam-visible behavior, and no network traffic for Honorlock to intercept, but it leaves process, model-file, and GPU-memory signatures that Aiseptor scans for.
The Privacy Trade-off
Honorlock collects webcam footage, room scans, and candidate biometric data, retained for extended periods. EPIC filed a complaint in 2020 citing excessive biometric data collection. This is a live concern for institutions subject to FERPA, GDPR, or internal privacy commitments.
Aiseptor collects no webcam data, no screen content, no keystrokes. Only session-level network and device signals, retained by default with no footage to retain at all. The post-exam record defaults to 90 days and is configurable from 7 to 365 days by the institution. For the full data model, see the trust page.
Comparison: Honorlock vs. Network-Layer Enforcement
| Capability | Honorlock | Aiseptor (Network Layer) |
|---|---|---|
| Named overlay (e.g. Cluely on a denylist) | Yes (process-name match) | Yes (technique match) |
| Renamed / unknown / forked overlays (Pluely, etc.) | No (not on the name list) | Yes |
| On-device LLMs (Ollama, LM Studio) | No | Yes |
| Detects the technique, not just the process name | No | Yes |
| Webcam monitoring | Yes | No |
| Browser lockdown | Yes | No (complementary)* |
| Data collected | Webcam, biometrics, screen | Network access signals only |
| Data retention | Extended (up to years) | No footage; metadata 90 days (7-365) |
* Not a capability gap: a deliberate scope boundary. Aiseptor is a network/device-layer complement to browser lockdown, not a replacement for it.
Complementary Architecture
Honorlock = physical and behavioral layer. Aiseptor = network and device layer. Together they cover the full threat surface. Honorlock catches the person looking off-camera. Aiseptor catches the overlay they opened before the exam started.
See also: Respondus alternatives · Proctorio alternatives · Mettl alternatives
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Honorlock detect Cluely?
Proctoring vendors have begun naming Cluely in their documentation, whether by blocking it from launching or by listing it among the tools they detect. That closes one named tool. It does not close the technique: a renamed Cluely build, an open-source fork, or a different overlay (Pluely, InterviewCoder, and the next one) uses the same invisible-overlay architecture under a different name, and a control keyed to identity has to be told about each one first. Aiseptor detects the technique instead of the name: the screen-capture-exclusion flag every invisible overlay must set.
If Honorlock now blocks Cluely, why is the overlay threat still open?
Name-based detection is reactive: a tool has to be known, named, and added to a list before it can be caught. Invisible overlays are trivial to rename and ship as forks, so a denylist is always one release behind. Aiseptor keys on the invariant instead: any overlay that hides from screen-share must call WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE, and Aiseptor flags that flag regardless of the process name, including tools it has never seen.
Does Honorlock detect AI cheating?
Honorlock can detect some AI-assisted behaviors that are visible to a webcam or leave browser-layer artifacts, plus specific overlay tools it has added to its process denylist by name. It cannot detect unknown or renamed OS-layer overlays, or on-device language models running in local memory with no network traffic.
What does Honorlock collect from students?
Honorlock collects webcam footage, room scans, screen recordings, and browser activity data. In 2020, EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) filed a complaint citing concerns about excessive biometric data collection by remote proctoring services including Honorlock. Read the EPIC complaint
Is there an Honorlock alternative without webcam?
Yes. Aiseptor enforces exam integrity through network and device-layer controls: no webcam, no screen recording, no keystrokes. The audit record is metadata about what was and wasn't reachable during the session, not a recording of the candidate.
Does Honorlock scan your phone or other devices on your network?
No, and Honorlock says so directly: “Honorlock does not scan other devices on your network, such as phones and tablets.” What it actually has is a patented process for detecting when a test taker searches the internet for exam content, by filtering web content and recognising questions from the LMS. In other words it catches the second device by catching the search made on it, not by looking for the device. Anything answered on a phone without searching for the question text is outside that mechanism.
Is Honorlock the same as Respondus LockDown Browser?
No. They are separate companies with competing products, and neither publishes any corporate relationship with the other. Honorlock ships its own browser lockdown, BrowserGuard, alongside its proctoring. Respondus ships LockDown Browser and, separately, Respondus Monitor. The confusion is understandable because an institution may deploy either to do a similar job, but they are not the same software and not the same vendor.
What does Honorlock record?
Depending on what your institution enables: a photo of you and your ID, a 360-degree scan of your surroundings, webcam video, desktop activity, and audio. Honorlock also logs websites you attempt to visit in Chrome during the exam. The review interface presents synced audio and video, and a working microphone is a stated requirement. How much of this is switched on is an institutional decision, not a fixed product behaviour.
Does Honorlock use live human proctors or AI?
Both, in a defined order. Honorlock describes it as hybrid: AI monitors behaviour, live proctors review and validate what it flags, and proctors intervene only when necessary through what it calls Live Pop-In. Its own student-facing wording is that you will not be watched for the whole exam. That model is efficient, and it is also why the signals it surfaces are the ones a camera and a browser can produce.
Where Aiseptor Fits: Beneath, Not Instead Of
Aiseptor is a layer, not a rip-and-replace. It sits beneath Honorlock, and beneath any lockdown browser or proctoring service, owning the device and network layer those tools architecturally cannot reach. Keep what you have for browser control or webcam proctoring; add Aiseptor for the OS- and network-level AI threats it was built to stop. The exam page can open in a normal browser while Aiseptor enforces the machine boundary.
What Aiseptor does not do: physical and environment security is out of scope. Aiseptor does not verify identity, watch the room, or catch a phone, a paper note, or an in-person accomplice off-camera. For those, pair Aiseptor with a live proctor or an identity-verification step. Aiseptor secures the device and the network path, not the physical room around it.
No webcam. No screen recording. Just network enforcement.
5 sessions free, no credit card. The audit record is metadata about what was and wasn't reachable, not a recording of your candidates.