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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 the most mature solution in the market."
"Security Onion is a completely open-source and free platform, making it a cost-effective solution that works smoothly and effectively for our organization."
"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"I would definitely recommend Wazuh to those who want a SIEM tool as a central logging system and for log management."
"We found the MITRE framework mapping and the agent enrollment service to be the most valuable features of Wazuh."
"It is excellent in terms of visualization and indexing services, making it a powerful tool for malware detection."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"One of the most beneficial features of Wazuh, particularly in the context of security needs, is the machine learning data handling capability."
"It is a stable solution."
"The configuration assessment and Pile integrity monitoring features are decent."
"I like that the solution is on top of the Kubernetes stack."
 

Cons

"The product is not easy to learn."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"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 want more support for regional compliance standards to serve my ANZ region customers better."
"Integration with Vyara could be better."
"It would be better if they had a vulnerability assessment plug-in like the one AlienVault has. In the next release, I would like to have an app with an alerting mechanism."
"A lack of certain features creates limitations."
"When I face a challenge, I prefer not to spend too much time on it and may move to another solution that will give us the results."
"The support channel is not optimal, and extensive research is required on our part to implement Wazuh effectively."
"One area where Wazuh could use some improvement is in its reporting mechanism, especially for high-level management like CSOs and CEOs."
"The implementation is very complex."
 

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 cost-effective solution."
"Wazuh is a cheaply priced product."
"Wazuh is totally free and open source. There are no licensing costs, only support costs if you need them."
"The product price is neither too high nor too low."
"My client uses the open-source version of Wazuh."
"Wazuh has a community edition, and I was using that. It's free and open source."
"The current pricing is open source."
"The product is cheaper compared to other tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
12%
Government
10%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
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.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.