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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) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Security Onion is 1.6%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wazuh is 3.9%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wazuh3.9%
Security Onion1.6%
Other94.5%
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.
Sudarson Prabhu - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Consultant at Payatu
File integrity monitoring has strengthened our data protection and supports compliance needs
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 the dashboard itself, you can get the unique ID everywhere, including where the laptop has been logged in, when the logout happened, and what actions have been done for that unique ID. I expected the same in Wazuh, but whenever we want to check any monitoring activities for a specific person, we need to search for the endpoint and then get the endpoint details from our Active Directory or wherever we have the endpoint name stored in our resources, and then search for the endpoint to see the history for that specific endpoint only. This made a simple thing a bit complex. If we had a correlation of logs where I could just search one unique ID and then the unique ID pulls every system in a time-wise manner, that would be a great improvement I would suggest.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use Security Onion for internal vulnerability assessment."
"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."
"Wazuh's best features are syscheck, its ability to immediately resolve vulnerabilities, and that it's open source."
"The deployment is easy and they provide very good documentation."
"I would recommend Wazuh to others."
"Wazuh is simple to use for PCI compliance."
"Overall, I rate Wazuh a nine out of ten."
"Wazuh has very flexible and robust features."
"It's very easy to integrate Wazuh with other environments, cloud applications, and on-prem applications. So, the advantage is that it's easy to implement and integrate with other solutions."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
 

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."
"Security Onion's user interface could be improved."
"The initial setup of the solution is a little bit difficult."
"The product is not easy to learn."
"When we use low-end laptops for low-level employees, then the laptops become slow because of the backend work the agent is collecting and processing, causing the laptop to slow down and the bandwidth to decrease."
"The technical support can be improved. Wazuh has some bugs that need to be fixed. It would be good if we can have automation with respect to incidence responses."
"We would like to see more improvements on the cloud. They need better cloud integration."
"The deployment is a bit complex."
"While it is scalable, it can suffer from reduced latencies."
"Its configuration process is time-consuming."
"A lack of certain features creates limitations."
"There is room for improvement by integrating more AI into Wazuh. It requires constant nurturing, as I have to provide it with code and specific requirements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is an open-source solution."
"Security Onion is a free solution."
"Wazuh is an open-source tool, which means it is freely available for use."
"Wazuh is open-source, but you must consider the total cost of ownership. It may be free to acquire, but you spend a lot of time and effort supporting the product and getting it to a point where it's useful."
"Wazuh is an open-source tool."
"There is not a license required for Wazuh."
"We use the free version of Wazuh."
"The current pricing is open source."
"Wazuh is totally free and open source. There are no licensing costs, only support costs if you need them."
"Wazuh is open-source, therefore it is free. You can purchase support for $1,000 a year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
11%
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.
915,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.