head to head · open source
suricata vs Defguard
suricata has 6,646 GitHub stars, 1,769 forks, 86 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Defguard has 2,843 stars, 114 forks, 308 open issues and last shipped yesterday. suricata leads on adoption by 134% (6,646 vs 2,843 stars). suricata is written in C under GPL-2.0; Defguard is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. suricata has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, Defguard 4%. Defguard was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| suricata | Defguard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.6K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | C | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 114 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick suricata if
- You weight community size — 6.6K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Defguard if
- You want the Defguard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Defguard fits your workflow better
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 →
About Defguard
Defguard is a self hosted secure remote access platform that combines WireGuard VPN, identity and access management, multi factor authentication, and network access control. It lives in the Rust based open source network security ecosystem and presents itself as zero trust access management with true WireGuard 2FA/MFA. The project uses an AGPL open source core, while Enterprise components are described as open code.
read the full Defguard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is suricata or Defguard more popular?
suricata has 6,646 GitHub stars and Defguard has 2,843. suricata has the larger community by that measure.
Are suricata and Defguard free?
Both are open source. suricata is licensed under GPL-2.0, and Defguard has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between suricata and Defguard?
suricata is written in C and Defguard in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, suricata or Defguard?
Choose suricata if you want the larger community (6,646 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Defguard if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.