head to head · open source
FireZone vs suricata
FireZone has 9,158 GitHub stars, 466 forks, 412 open issues and last shipped yesterday. suricata has 6,812 stars, 1,783 forks, 86 open issues and last shipped yesterday. FireZone leads on adoption by 34% (9,158 vs 6,812 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 26%. 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 | ★ 9.2K | ★ 6.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Elixir | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 466 | ⑂ 1.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick FireZone if
- You weight community size — 9.2K 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
Blazing fast remote access with identity based policies, attested device trust, and detailed audit logs Documentation Quickstart Download Clients Support Overview Firezone is a secure remote access platform built on WireGuard®. Connect users to private applications, databases, servers, and subnets with granular policies that define who can access each Resource and under what conditions. Combine identity based access with cryptographic device verification and detailed audit records. Gateways run in your infrastructure, and the full product source is available for inspection in this repository. Getting Started…
read the full FireZone overview →
About suricata
Suricata Introduction Suricata is a network IDS, IPS and NSM engine developed by the OISF and the Suricata community. Resources Home Page Bug Tracker User Guide Dev Guide Installation Guide User Support Forum Contributing We're happily taking patches and other contributions. Please see our Contribution Process for how to get started. Suricata is a complex piece of software dealing with mostly untrusted input. Mishandling this input will have serious consequences: in IPS mode a crash may knock a network offline in passive mode a compromise of the IDS may lead to loss of critical and confidential data missed…
read the full suricata overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is FireZone or suricata more popular?
FireZone has 9,158 GitHub stars and suricata has 6,812. 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 (9,158 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.