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Security Onion vs Wazuh comparison

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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
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Wazuh
Ranking in Log Management
2nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Security Onion is 1.7%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wazuh is 4.0%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wazuh4.0%
Security Onion1.7%
Other94.3%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Hiten Nandasana - PeerSpot reviewer
Angular developer at Flourish software
Centralized monitoring has strengthened threat detection and supports faster incident investigations
Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization. Security Onion integrates well with our existing tools, primarily using Linux systems in our organization, allowing us to monitor logs and manage threat detection and operations in the public cloud effectively. Security Onion is very helpful in meeting compliance requirements and supports regular standards for our environment. I advise organizations that use Linux or have network security knowledge to consider Security Onion, as it satisfies requirements such as threat detection and log management systems. I would rate this review eight out of ten.
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 a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization."
"Security Onion is the most mature solution in the market."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"We found the MITRE framework mapping and the agent enrollment service to be the most valuable features of Wazuh."
"Regarding Wazuh, I find the SCA (Security Configuration Assessment) features most valuable. It's crucial for asset management and inventory, allowing us to monitorendpoints and servers' changes easily. This is particularly important for my customers, who aren't heavily focused on incident response but rely on asset management and inventories. Wazuh's compliance management features are very supportive, especially in regions like the Americas and Europe. However, it's less effective in the ANZ (Australia and New Zealand) region since Wazuh doesn't cater to the specific compliance standards there, such as those required in Australia. I appreciate that Wazuh fully complies with PCI DSS and GDPR standards, allowing us to generate necessary reports."
"The deployment is easy and they provide very good documentation."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The product’s interface is intuitive."
"Wazuh automatically scans the host for CIS benchmarks for the latest updates and vulnerabilities and gives a host score. It provides a percentage of perceived risk due to of non patches or any missing patches on that work."
"Overall, I rate Wazuh a nine out of ten."
"Wazuh is free and easy to use. It is also adjustable, and we can use it on the cloud and on-premises."
 

Cons

"Security Onion can be made easier to set up initially, as it is somewhat difficult at the start, but once configured, it becomes a great tool to use."
"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."
"Wazuh is missing many things that a typical SIEM should have."
"The support team could be more responsive and provide quicker replies during our working hours in Indonesia, which would be a significant improvement."
"The deployment is a bit complex."
"The lack of AI features is an issue at the moment in the industry."
"They could include flexibility and customization capabilities by modifying for customers based on partner agreements."
"Wazuh requires substantial maintenance. The indexer frequently times out, requiring system restarts. When it comes to errors, debugging takes considerable time."
"Its configuration process is time-consuming."
"There's not much I like about Wazuh. Other products I've used were a lot more functional and user friendly. They came with reports and use cases out of the box. We need to configure Wazuh's alerts and monitoring capabilities manually. It'd be nice if we could select from templates and presets for use cases already built and coded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Security Onion is a free solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It is a free-of-cost solution."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"Wazuh is open-source, so I think it's an option for a small organization that cannot go for enterprise-grade solutions like Splunk."
"The current pricing is open source."
"Wazuh is an open-source tool, which means it is freely available for use."
"The product price is neither too high nor too low."
"Wazuh is not an expensive solution."
"Wazuh has a community edition, and I was using that. It's free and open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
12%
Government
9%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
Security Onion does not require any cost, as it is open-source and free.
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
Security Onion can be made easier to set up initially, as it is somewhat difficult at the start, but once configured, it becomes a great tool to use. I assigned a rating of eight out of ten because...
What advice do you have for others considering Security Onion?
Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization. Security Onion integrates well with our e...
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?
I expected one thing from the dashboard in Wazuh. In ManageEngine, when you use ManageEngine, you can assign a unique ID to all employees. Then with the unique ID, if you search any unique ID in th...
What is your primary use case for Wazuh?
Our organization is focusing on the integrity part for implementing Wazuh. We were checking solutions for File Integrity Monitoring systems that are available online. Wazuh caught my attention as a...
 

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: September 2026.
912,788 professionals have used our research since 2012.