Security Onion
Linux distribution and platform bundling Zeek, Suricata, Elastic stack, and analyst UIs for NSM and log hunting.
Why it is included
Turnkey open blueprint for SOC-in-a-box labs and small teams.
Best for
Homelab SOCs, training, and pilots before enterprise SIEM spend.
Strengths
- Integrated stack
- Curated updates
- Community
Limitations
- Hardware sizing; overlaps with custom ELK + Zeek builds
Good alternatives
Wazuh + Elastic · custom Zeek/Suricata
Related tools
Security & Privacy
Zeek
Network security monitor producing rich logs (conn, DNS, HTTP, SSL, files) for analytics—not a classic IDS signature engine.
Security & Privacy
Suricata
High-performance IDS/IPS and network security monitoring with multi-threading, TLS inspection options, and Lua scripting.
Security & Privacy
Wazuh
Open security platform combining SIEM, XDR, file integrity monitoring, and compliance checks across endpoints and cloud.
Security & Privacy
Arkime
Large-scale full packet capture, indexing, and search (SPIE) with a web UI—successor to the Moloch lineage for NSM teams.
Security & Privacy
Snort
Classic packet-sniffing IDS/IPS with rule language and community rule feeds; Snort 3 improves scaling.
Security & Privacy
MISP
Threat intelligence sharing platform: IOCs, galaxies, taxonomies, sync between communities, and API automation.