Alternatives to Malcolm
A self-hosted network traffic analysis suite that turns PCAP files, Zeek logs and Suricata alerts into searchable dashboards. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Malcolm
A self-hosted network traffic analysis suite that turns PCAP files, Zeek logs and Suricata alerts into searchable dashboards.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Malcolm.
Security Onion
A free Linux distribution for network security monitoring, packet capture, detection and threat hunting.
Security Onion installs as a full Linux distribution from one ISO with packet capture, detection rules and threat hunting, though some parts like Onion AI go through sales.
Arkime
Store and search captured network traffic through a web interface.
Arkime covers only the packet storage and session search part of the stack, indexing sessions and keeping PCAP data through a web interface without Zeek or Suricata dashboards.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Malcolm as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
NetworkMiner
Network forensics tool that extracts files and credentials from captures.
Malcolm is a self-hosted suite that combines PCAP, Zeek and Suricata data into searchable dashboards, but it is a large multi-container stack needing substantial resources.
ntopng
Web-based network traffic probe that shows real-time and historical flows by host, protocol and application.
Malcolm is free and open source, analysing PCAP files, Zeek logs and Suricata alerts in searchable dashboards, but it is a large multi-container stack needing substantial server resources.
RITA
A network traffic analysis framework that detects command and control communication such as beaconing.
Malcolm is a self-hosted multi-container suite turning PCAP files, Zeek logs and Suricata alerts into searchable dashboards, needing more server resources than RITA.
Zeek
Network analysis framework that turns traffic into high-level activity logs.
Malcolm packages Zeek and Suricata data with searchable dashboards in a large multi-container stack that needs substantial server resources.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Zui
A desktop application for exploring data, and the official front end to Brim Data's SuperDB.
Wireshark
The network protocol analyser: capture traffic and read it packet by packet, with dissectors for hundreds of protocols.
T-Pot
An all-in-one multi-honeypot platform with dashboards for analysing collected attack data.
