No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Security Onion vs VictoriaMetrics comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 9, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.2
Security Onion offers cost-effective, open-source tools for enhanced threat detection and efficient incident response, benefiting organizations and learners.
Sentiment score
6.7
VictoriaMetrics reduces costs by up to 60%, improves efficiency and performance, and enhances client satisfaction with easy management.
With this kind of tool, students can save money by using open-source software while gaining experience in working with different logs and detection systems, leading to time savings during their studies.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
We could save some cost while integrating Security Onion in our organization to help us manage some simplified threat detection alerts.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
I have seen a return on investment with VictoriaMetrics, saving 40% in storage costs compared to Prometheus, reducing query latency by 60%, and cutting maintenance time by half.
DevOps Engineer
time was saved due to simplicity and a shorter learning curve compared to other tools.
Director at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Because VictoriaMetrics runs more efficiently and much faster, debugging an issue or understanding system performance is much easier.
Associate Director at Husk Power Systems
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.9
Security Onion's customer service is praised for responsiveness, helpful technical support, and robust community resources, even for free users.
Sentiment score
5.6
VictoriaMetrics' responsive customer service, quick support, and helpful community backing garner positive feedback, enhancing user satisfaction and engagement.
I rate the customer support nine out of ten.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
I can give it nine to 9.5 or 10 points for support.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
I have participated in some community resources, and it is pretty good because it has a large community that has been around for years, which helps.
We reached out once or twice for minor issues during the initial setup and integration, and they were helpful in resolving the issues.
Director at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
VictoriaMetrics customer support is exceptional.
Observability Engineer
We use the open-source version of VictoriaMetrics, so we did not require any customer support.
Software Engineer at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Security Onion effectively scales for small to large environments, though API integration can be challenging; performance depends on system resources.
Sentiment score
7.9
VictoriaMetrics is praised for its scalability, stability, and easy cloud integration, efficiently handling large time series data.
I would say it's scalable based on your license, the cost of implementation, and your own architecture as well.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
It handles large volumes of time series data efficiently, using less memory and disk compared to Prometheus or Thanos.
DevOps Engineer
We deploy and embed it in our Helm chart and it works out of the box.
Founder
VictoriaMetrics has handled increases in data and users smoothly so far.
Director at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Security Onion is reliable, performing well in VMware with occasional issues, mainly related to configuration, resources, or storage needs.
Sentiment score
8.6
VictoriaMetrics is praised for stability, reliability, and compatibility with Kubernetes, requiring no updates or downtime according to users.
Security Onion is reliable and is a good product, having no glitches or latency problems.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
Security Onion is pretty stable, with the only significant issue being that I had to increase the storage.
In terms of accuracy and reliability, VictoriaMetrics's output is pretty sufficient and works very well in a native Kubernetes setup, which I appreciate.
DevOps Architect at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
The components are simple, restarts are fast, and stateless parts can be replaced without data loss.
DevOps Engineer
Regarding stability, I would rate it a ten out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Security Onion needs a more intuitive setup, improved UI, enhanced documentation, and reduced complexity for better usability.
VictoriaMetrics should improve UI with OpenTelemetry features and enhance pricing, documentation, integrations, automation, and data management strategies.
The biggest challenges I have experienced with Security Onion are the learning curve and resource requirements, as it is not necessarily something you can install and immediately understand without networking and Linux knowledge.
A specific guideline for helping beginners understand the detection and investigation features of Security Onion would be beneficial.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Security Onion could be improved by making the user interface more intuitive for new users and simplifying the initial setup and configuration process.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
For our use cases, it is a really good offering, and while we would be interested to see what else it brings in the future, at this point in time it checks all our boxes and we are quite satisfied with it.
Director at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
VictoriaMetrics is quite a good project and quite easy to use overall.
Software Engineer at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
I compared it with my experience on other time series databases, and it has a huge advantage, so I do not see the need for urgent improvements or optimizations.
Software Engineer & Data Analyst at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

Security Onion provides cost-effective solutions with free core features, requiring hardware for deployment, and offers enterprise support.
VictoriaMetrics offers minimal costs due to its open-source model, with straightforward setup and optional affordable paid subscriptions.
I do not have a license for Security Onion since I have the free version, meaning it does not cost me anything.
The enterprise version should be reasonably priced, not so expensive.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
I installed Security Onion as a free tool and did not utilize the licensed version.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
We did not require any license for VictoriaMetrics since we are using the open-source version.
Software Engineer at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
I used the free open-source version, and it was sufficient for my needs.
Software Engineer & Data Analyst at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for VictoriaMetrics is positive since it is open-source under Apache 2.0, so there is no licensing cost.
DevOps Engineer
 

Valuable Features

Security Onion integrates monitoring tools for threat detection, log management, and network analysis, offering accessible and cost-effective security.
VictoriaMetrics offers fast, efficient, and scalable performance with cost-effective monitoring, supporting Prometheus and Kubernetes integrations for optimal resource usage.
One of the best features that Security Onion offers is that it is open source, free to install in a lab environment, and allows for monitoring network traffic and investigating potential attacks while integrating other tools such as Suricata, Zeek, and Elastic-based components that are useful for diving into the logs, along with its threat detection capabilities to see network activity, including port scans, unusual connections, and potential intrusion attempts.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Tools such as Suricata and Zeek help identify suspicious network activity and provide detailed information for investigating and analyzing the potential threat which is coming to any organization.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
What I appreciate most about Security Onion is that it combines multiple security monitoring tools into one platform.
The best aspect of using VictoriaMetrics is the reduction in resources including RAM, memory, disk, and other infrastructure requirements, which have all decreased substantially after implementation.
Software Engineer at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
In my experience, the best features VictoriaMetrics offers include that VM agent does its work very efficiently and does not use a lot of resources.
Head of Application Support
Its compact storage and fast query performance make it ideal for long-term metric storage.
DevOps Engineer
 

Categories and Ranking

Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VictoriaMetrics
Ranking in Log Management
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (16th), Open Source Databases (10th), Server Monitoring (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (12th), Container Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (14th), AIOps (13th), AI Observability Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Security Onion is 1.5%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VictoriaMetrics is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Security Onion1.5%
VictoriaMetrics0.2%
Other98.3%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

CO
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Improved threat detection and incident response has revealed training and usability gaps
What I would like to add is that if the interface or if there is less to work on technical knowledge. For example, people with no technical knowledge cannot use this, so they need to have at least a deep or substantial level of technical knowledge to be able to use these tools. If there is a way there can be an optimization to accommodate those with no technical knowledge in the process using tools compared to tools such as Sentinel and Splunk, which also doesn't require much technical knowledge to be able to use. That would also help. I think Security Onion could be improved by making the user interface more intuitive for new users and simplifying the initial setup and configuration process. Security Onion needs to be simplified so that those with less technical knowledge can be able to come in and use it. Guidance on prioritizing alerts will also be helpful, especially in an environment where security analysts deal with a high volume of security events. I also would like to mention that it needs to be more straightforward integration with other security tools. There needs to be a handshake between Security Onion and other same tools to help in endpoint detection and protection against threats. Another improvement that could also enhance is the reporting and visualization of the key metrics such as detection time, the incident, the overall interface of the analysis, and the false rate, which will also give Security Onion a better view for security analysts to be able to use and understand it. I would like to see the interface to be more simplified. I also would like to see the visualization to be more improved. I also would like to see the support features to be something that junior analysts or those coming in to start up their careers can be able to use without needing deep technical knowledge.
reviewer2911872 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer
Long term metrics monitoring has improved AI workflows and now powers faster incident analysis
The best features VictoriaMetrics offers in my experience include fast query performance and efficient resource usage, seamless compatibility with the Prometheus ecosystem, a simple cluster architecture with minimal components, MetricsQL with useful functions beyond PromQL, and comprehensive tooling like VMAgent and VMAlert. VictoriaMetrics stands out to me because it is highly efficient, stable, and easy to run in air-gapped environments. It integrates well with Prometheus ecosystem tools like Kube-Prometheus-Stack and Grafana. Its compact storage and fast query performance make it ideal for long-term metric storage. The cluster setup is simple and scalable, which is a big advantage for production use.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Log Management solutions are best for your needs.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
10%
Government
10%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
21%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
I have not had a problem with pricing, setup cost, and licensing because my experience with Security Onion's pricing has been positive. Security Onion is open-source, so I was able to use its c...
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
One way Security Onion could improve is by making the initial setup and configuration easier, especially for new users. When I first started working with it, I experienced challenges configuring ne...
What advice do you have for others considering Security Onion?
I would give Security Onion a rating of 10 out of 10. I have used other platforms, and I can tell that Security Onion provides powerful security monitoring and investigation tools in one platform, ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VictoriaMetrics?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, we are using open source today.
What needs improvement with VictoriaMetrics?
Regarding performance gains or cost savings, I can add that native multitenancy is only in the cluster version, and on single-node, we had to build tenant isolation ourselves with labels and query ...
What is your primary use case for VictoriaMetrics?
VictoriaMetrics is our time-series store, and we have Helm charts that ship an embedded single-node VictoriaMetrics with 30-day rotation by default. Teams that already run VictoriaMetrics can point...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VictoriaMetrics Observability Enterprise Support
 

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
CERN, Grammarly, Adidas, Spotify R&D, DreamHost, Traefik Labs, DSV, MHI Vestas
Find out what your peers are saying about Security Onion vs. VictoriaMetrics and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.