Suricata vs Wazuh

Suricata vs Wazuh? Which is better for you?

In today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, organizations face increasing pressure to adopt robust, real-time security monitoring tools that can detect, analyze, and respond to threats efficiently.

With the explosion of distributed systems, cloud workloads, and hybrid infrastructures, the need for comprehensive and scalable open-source security solutions has never been greater.

Among the most well-regarded tools in the open-source security ecosystem are Suricata and Wazuh.

While both play a vital role in protecting infrastructure, they approach security from fundamentally different angles:

• Suricata is a network-based intrusion detection and prevention system (IDS/IPS) designed for real-time packet inspection, alerting, and traffic logging.

• Wazuh, on the other hand, is a host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS) focused on log analysis, file integrity monitoring, vulnerability detection, and SIEM integration.

In this comparison, we’ll break down the strengths, use cases, and limitations of each platform to help you decide which solution (or combination) is right for your environment.

Whether you’re building a Security Operations Center (SOC), hardening enterprise infrastructure, or evaluating alternatives to commercial platforms, understanding the differences between Suricata and Wazuh is critical.

🔗 Learn more about Suricata on OISF and Wazuh’s official platform.

Related comparisons you might find useful:

• Security Onion vs Wazuh

• SELKS vs Security Onion

• Zeek vs Suricata

By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of how these two tools fit into a modern cybersecurity stack—and when it makes sense to deploy one, the other, or both.

What is Suricata?

Suricata is a high-performance, open-source network security engine developed by the Open Information Security Foundation (OISF).

Designed to serve as an Intrusion Detection System (IDS), Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), and Network Security Monitoring (NSM) solution, Suricata offers powerful capabilities for organizations seeking real-time, packet-level visibility into their network traffic.

Core Capabilities

• Intrusion Detection System (IDS): Detects malicious or suspicious traffic patterns using a robust set of rules.

• Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): In inline deployment mode, Suricata can drop or reject packets that match threat signatures.

• Network Security Monitoring (NSM): Captures and analyzes traffic for forensic and behavioral insights.

• Signature-Based Detection: Suricata supports Snort-compatible rules, making it easy to integrate with existing rule sets such as ET Open or ET Pro.

• Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): Offers visibility into application-layer protocols (HTTP, TLS, DNS, etc.).

• Real-Time Alerting: Sends alerts when threats are detected, integrating with tools like SIEMs for centralized monitoring.

Ideal Use Cases

Suricata excels in scenarios that require high-performance, real-time network threat detection, such as:

• Perimeter defense in enterprise networks

• Security Operations Centers (SOCs) needing actionable alerts

• Hybrid environments that require visibility across on-prem and cloud traffic

• Deployments requiring inline packet filtering and blocking

Its multi-threaded architecture allows it to fully utilize modern multi-core CPUs, making it suitable for high-throughput environments.

For a broader view of how Suricata compares with other network tools, see our post on Zeek vs Suricata and Security Onion vs Wazuh.

What is Wazuh?

Wazuh is an open-source, enterprise-grade host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS) that originated as a fork of OSSEC and has since evolved into a comprehensive security platform with its own active development and community.

It is designed to monitor endpoints, analyze security events, ensure compliance, and integrate with modern SIEM workflows.

Core Capabilities

• Host-Based Intrusion Detection (HIDS): Monitors file changes, log activity, system calls, and configuration changes across endpoints.

• Log Data Analysis and Correlation: Aggregates and parses log data from various sources (Linux, Windows, cloud services) to detect threats and anomalies.

• File Integrity Monitoring (FIM): Tracks modifications to files and directories to detect unauthorized or suspicious changes.

• Vulnerability Detection: Identifies system vulnerabilities using package and software version checks.

• SIEM Integration: Natively integrates with the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) to provide dashboards, search capabilities, and long-term data storage.

• Compliance Monitoring: Helps meet standards like PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, and NIST by providing audit capabilities and policy checks.

Ideal Use Cases

Wazuh is a strong choice for teams that need detailed endpoint-level visibility and centralized security management, particularly in scenarios like:

• Compliance-driven environments (e.g., healthcare, finance)

• Workstation and server monitoring in hybrid and cloud setups

• Organizations building out SIEM capabilities without relying on commercial products

• Teams looking for comprehensive log analysis and correlation

Wazuh complements tools like Suricata by providing insight from the host level—whereas Suricata monitors traffic on the wire.

For more on how Wazuh fits into broader security stacks, see Security Onion vs Wazuh or SELKS vs Security Onion.

Suricata vs Wazuh: Core Differences

While both Suricata and Wazuh are powerful open-source security tools, they operate at different layers of the stack and serve distinct purposes.

Suricata focuses on network-level monitoring, whereas Wazuh offers host-based visibility and compliance enforcement.

Here’s a feature-by-feature breakdown to help you understand how these tools compare:

Together, these tools can complement each other—Suricata detecting network-based threats and Wazuh providing context-rich host-level insight and compliance enforcement.

You may also want to explore Security Onion vs Wazuh for insight into platforms that integrate these tools or review Zeek vs Suricata to compare Suricata with another leading network analysis tool.

Suricata vs Wazuh: Use Case Scenarios

Understanding when to use Suricata or Wazuh comes down to your security priorities and where in your infrastructure you need visibility—the network or the endpoint.

When to Use Suricata

Suricata excels in environments where network-layer visibility and active threat detection are critical:

• Perimeter Security: Ideal for deployment at network entry/exit points (e.g., firewalls, gateways) to monitor inbound/outbound traffic.

• Real-Time Intrusion Detection and Prevention: Suricata can be run in inline mode for active blocking of known threats using Snort or custom rules.

• Traffic Analysis: Its deep packet inspection (DPI) capabilities make it valuable for detecting protocol anomalies, malicious payloads, and command-and-control traffic.

• Complement to Endpoint Tools: Use Suricata in tandem with host-based solutions like Wazuh for a layered defense strategy.

When to Use Wazuh

Wazuh is the right tool when your focus is on endpoint monitoring, system integrity, and compliance:

• Log Correlation and Threat Detection: Ideal for detecting insider threats or misconfigurations by correlating logs across servers and devices.

• Compliance Monitoring: Supports standards like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR with file integrity monitoring (FIM), audit logging, and policy checks.

• Host Visibility: Deployed as agents on servers and workstations, Wazuh offers deep visibility into what’s happening on the operating system level.

• Elastic Stack Integration: If you’re already using the ELK stack for observability, Wazuh plugs in seamlessly to provide a SIEM experience.

For hybrid environments, consider a combined deployment: use Suricata for packet-level insights and Wazuh for host-level analytics.

This layered approach aligns with security best practices and is common in tools like Security Onion, which bundles both.

If you’re exploring similar comparisons, you might also find our Zeek vs Suricata and Security Onion vs Wazuh posts useful.

Suricata vs Wazuh: Can You Use Both Together?

Absolutely — Suricata and Wazuh are highly complementary, and many security teams deploy them together to achieve full-stack visibility across both the network and host layers.

A Layered Approach to Detection

• Suricata excels at detecting threats moving across the wire — malware downloads, suspicious DNS traffic, or brute-force attempts — by inspecting packets in real-time.

• Wazuh, on the other hand, monitors what’s happening inside the endpoints — like unauthorized file changes, failed logins, or suspicious process behavior.

By combining these tools, you get both north-south (network) and east-west (host) visibility — critical for modern security operations.

Example Architecture

A typical setup might look like this:

• Suricata is deployed at key ingress/egress points in the network, operating in IDS mode to generate alerts based on signature rules (e.g., Emerging Threats).

• Wazuh agents run on critical infrastructure (Linux servers, Windows machines), collecting logs, monitoring files, and correlating events.

• Both tools feed data into a central Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) — with Wazuh acting as the SIEM layer to aggregate, correlate, and visualize all alerts.

This configuration allows you to:

• Centralize and correlate alerts from both sources

• Perform forensic analysis with Zeek-like depth (via Suricata packet logs)

• Meet compliance requirements using Wazuh’s built-in dashboards and rules

Suricata vs Wazuh: Community and Ecosystem

When selecting open-source security tools, community support, ecosystem maturity, and available integrations are just as important as features and performance.

Both Suricata and Wazuh benefit from active and expanding ecosystems that enhance their value and usability.

Suricata

Suricata is developed and maintained by the Open Information Security Foundation (OISF), a non-profit dedicated to building and supporting open-source security technologies.

The project benefits from:

• Wide Rule Compatibility: Suricata supports Snort-compatible rules, allowing users to leverage existing rule sets such as Emerging Threats (ET Open and ET Pro).

• Developer Community: The OISF runs regular training events, webinars, and publishes detailed release notes, while the community contributes to documentation, rules, and plugins.

• Tooling and Integrations: Suricata integrates easily with platforms like ELK Stack, Security Onion, and tools like SIEMs and threat intelligence platforms.

For more on similar tools and alternatives, you might want to check our post: Zeek vs Suricata.

Wazuh

Wazuh has quickly grown from a fork of OSSEC into a mature, standalone security platform.

It boasts a thriving ecosystem supported by:

• Deep Elastic Stack Integration: Wazuh ships with ready-made dashboards and rules built for Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana — turning it into a powerful open-source SIEM.

• Comprehensive Documentation: The Wazuh documentation is detailed and actively maintained, covering setup, use cases, and integrations.

• Growing Community: Wazuh’s user base continues to expand, with forums, GitHub issues, and community Slack channels supporting active discussion and collaboration.

Suricata vs Wazuh: Performance and Scalability

Both Suricata and Wazuh are engineered to scale, but they address different layers of the security stack — network and endpoint, respectively — and their performance characteristics reflect this.

Suricata: High-Speed Packet Inspection at Scale

Suricata is built with performance in mind, particularly for environments with high-bandwidth network traffic:

• Multi-threaded Architecture: Suricata can leverage multiple CPU cores, distributing packet processing tasks across threads. This makes it capable of analyzing gigabits of traffic per second without sacrificing detection accuracy.

• Zero-Copy Packet Capture: Using technologies like AF_PACKET, PF_RING, or DPDK, Suricata can minimize overhead in packet processing, enabling near real-time intrusion detection.

• Optimized for Hardware Acceleration: In performance-critical environments (e.g., ISPs or data centers), Suricata can be tuned to work with NIC offloading and flow shunting to further enhance throughput.

This makes Suricata ideal for deployment at network perimeters, tap points, or within high-throughput cloud environments.

Wazuh: Scalable Host Monitoring via Agents

Wazuh’s performance scales with the number of monitored endpoints:

• Agent-Based Architecture: Lightweight agents installed on endpoints collect logs, monitor file integrity, detect vulnerabilities, and send events to the Wazuh manager.

• Centralized Management: The Wazuh manager can handle hundreds to thousands of agents, especially when paired with Elastic Stack for ingestion and analysis.

• Elastic Scalability: Since Wazuh is tightly coupled with the Elastic Stack, scaling typically involves adding nodes to Elasticsearch and Logstash to accommodate increased data volume and query complexity.

Wazuh is highly suitable for enterprise environments with large fleets of endpoints, providing consistent performance as the environment grows.

Conclusion

When it comes to open-source security tools, both Suricata and Wazuh offer compelling capabilities — but they serve distinct purposes within your security architecture.

Key Differences Recap:

• Suricata excels at network-based intrusion detection and prevention, offering real-time packet inspection, multi-threaded performance, and compatibility with Snort rule sets. It’s ideal for environments that need to monitor perimeter traffic or high-bandwidth links for known threats.

• Wazuh, by contrast, is a host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS) with strong SIEM capabilities, perfect for log analysis, file integrity monitoring, compliance auditing, and endpoint visibility.

Final Recommendations:

• Choose Suricata if your priority is network-layer visibility, real-time threat detection, or inline blocking at the edge.

• Choose Wazuh if you need deep endpoint monitoring, compliance tracking, and centralized log management across many devices.

• Use both together for a layered security strategy. Suricata provides real-time visibility into traffic flows, while Wazuh handles log correlation and post-event analysis — particularly when integrated via the Elastic Stack.

For organizations seeking a defense-in-depth approach, deploying both tools in tandem delivers broader coverage across the kill chain — from perimeter detection to endpoint response.