head to head · open source
FireZone vs suricata
FireZone has 9,096 GitHub stars, 457 forks, 412 open issues and last shipped yesterday. suricata has 6,646 stars, 1,769 forks, 86 open issues and last shipped yesterday. FireZone leads on adoption by 37% (9,096 vs 6,646 stars). FireZone is written in Elixir under Apache-2.0; suricata is written in C under GPL-2.0. FireZone has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, suricata 27%. FireZone was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (security), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| FireZone | suricata | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.1K | ★ 6.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Elixir | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 457 | ⑂ 1.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick FireZone if
- You weight community size — 9.1K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick suricata if
- You want the suricata feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and suricata fits your workflow better
About FireZone
FireZone is an enterprise ready zero trust access platform built on WireGuard. It connects users to private applications, databases, servers, and subnets through granular policies that define who can reach each Resource and under what conditions. It lives in the Security & Privacy / Network Security ecosystem, with Elixir, Phoenix LiveView, and Rust components indicated by repository topics and language metadata.
read the full FireZone overview →
About suricata
Suricata is a network Intrusion Detection System (IDS), Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and Network Security Monitoring (NSM) engine developed by the OISF and the Suricata community, released under GPL 2.0 and written in C, for security teams that need to detect, block and record activity on the networks they operate.
read the full suricata overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is FireZone or suricata more popular?
FireZone has 9,096 GitHub stars and suricata has 6,646. FireZone has the larger community by that measure.
Are FireZone and suricata free?
Both are open source. FireZone is licensed under Apache-2.0 and suricata under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between FireZone and suricata?
FireZone is written in Elixir and suricata in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, FireZone or suricata?
Choose FireZone if you want the larger community (9,096 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose suricata if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.