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Security Onion vs Wazuh comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
29th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Wazuh
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (3rd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Security Onion is 2.3%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wazuh is 5.4%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wazuh5.4%
Security Onion2.3%
Other92.3%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Jörg Kippe - PeerSpot reviewer
Scientist at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
A mature and affordable solution that is easy to install and easy to update
The product takes time to learn, it's not that easy. In the beginning we had a lot of questions. If you want to use such a tool in an real (industrial) environment, you have to ask how to get the network data. Can we do a full packet capture? Can we provide agents to our end systems? There are no simple solutions to these questions. It's a general problem when running such systems in an industrial environment.
RS
Engineer Information Security at N-Able (Pvt) Ltd
Has faced limitations in AI capabilities and pricing flexibility
Pricing-wise, Wazuh stands out, along with deployment flexibility and its documentation which is extremely good in comparison to Forti. The community support is also incredible. They have helped quite a bit because previously, we had a separate tool and management dashboard to do our compliance. With Wazuh, we receive that information without having to do anything extra. We just set up the SIEM and all of that information was automatically populated. The dashboards are very easy to understand and very quick with no lag or delay. I have experienced delays on Forti's dashboards, but not with Wazuh. Wazuh is quite good. In comparison to Forti, they are quite similar. They are very good at detection.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Security Onion for security monitoring is its ability to find infected ports."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"Overall, I rate Wazuh a nine out of ten."
"Wazuh offers numerous features, such as the ability to define custom rules for detecting malicious activities and remembering behaviors."
"It is a stable solution."
"It has efficient SCA capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of Wazuh is the ELK for doing an investigation."
"I find the PCI DSS feature the most valuable, along with the feature that monitors the compliance of Windows and the CIS benchmarks on other devices like Unix or Linux systems."
"It's stable."
"The solution is easy to maintain."
 

Cons

"The product is not easy to learn."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"An issue I noticed is with tag values in certain rules not functioning properly."
"A more structured approach, perhaps with modular UI components, to facilitate easier integration and navigation within the Wazuh platform for custom integrations would be beneficial."
"It would be better if they had a vulnerability assessment plug-in like the one AlienVault has."
"The biggest part that's missing is threat intelligence. It isn't inbuilt, and if a sudden incident occurs, we don't get that feedback inside the SIEM tool. That's a big gap, I see. It would be better if we could get the threat intelligence feeds integrated with the SIEM tools. That would help us push value solutions to the clients in a big way."
"The biggest part that's missing is threat intelligence. It isn't inbuilt, and if a sudden incident occurs, we don't get that feedback inside the SIEM tool."
"An issue I noticed is with tag values in certain rules not functioning properly."
"Scalability is a challenge because it is distributed architecture and it uses Elastic DB. Their Elastic DB doesn't allow open source waste application."
"I want more support for regional compliance standards to serve my ANZ region customers better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Wazuh is free and open source."
"Wazuh is not an expensive solution."
"The solution's pricing is very competitive."
"Wazuh is totally free and open source. There are no licensing costs, only support costs if you need them."
"Wazuh is a good tool, but the open-source version has scalability limitations."
"There is not a license required for Wazuh."
"It is a free-of-cost solution."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
12%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Wazuh?
Wazuh is its flexibility and open-source nature, which allows us to tailor threat detection and response across diverse client environments. Its integration capabilities with SOAR, cloud platforms,...
What needs improvement with Wazuh?
Regarding compliance, I find it not stable. I do not recommend it for that purpose. It can comply with Wazuh NCA, which we have here in Saudi Arabia. Wazuh NCA has many frameworks starting with ECC...
What is your primary use case for Wazuh?
I have been working with Wazuh for two years, and I can explain how I use Wazuh. I did not use Wazuh as a SIEM solution. I use Wazuh as a tool for services we provide. This service is called compro...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Wazuh All-In-One Deployment
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Security Onion vs. Wazuh and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.