head to head · open source
suricata vs WireGuard
suricata has 6,646 GitHub stars, 1,769 forks, 86 open issues and last shipped yesterday. WireGuard has 717 stars, 311 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. suricata leads on adoption by 827% (6,646 vs 717 stars). suricata is written in C under GPL-2.0; WireGuard is written in C under GPL-2.0. suricata has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, WireGuard 43%. suricata 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 | WireGuard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.6K | ★ 717 |
| License | GPL-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | C | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-05-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 311 |
| 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 WireGuard if
- You want the WireGuard 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 WireGuard 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 WireGuard
WireGuard's userspace tooling, packaged as wireguard tools, is the command line layer that configures WireGuard VPN tunnels, aimed at system administrators, distribution packagers and anyone who needs to bring a WireGuard interface up and down from a shell or an init system.
read the full WireGuard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is suricata or WireGuard more popular?
suricata has 6,646 GitHub stars and WireGuard has 717. suricata has the larger community by that measure.
Are suricata and WireGuard free?
Both are open source. suricata is licensed under GPL-2.0 and WireGuard under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between suricata and WireGuard?
suricata is written in C and WireGuard 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, suricata or WireGuard?
Choose suricata if you want the larger community (6,646 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose WireGuard if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.