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Zeek vs Snort: catalog facts
Zeek	Snort
Free The software is free under its open-source licence. Hosting, hardware and external…	Free Free and open source under the GPL. Subscriber rule sets are paid.
macOS, Linux	Windows, Linux, Self-hosted
Protocol analysers produce semantic logs of what happened on the network rather than raw packets, and its scripting…	Mature rule language and a large body of community and vendor rules Runs in detection or inline prevention mode
It produces a large volume of logs that need somewhere to go, and writing custom detections means learning…	Rule tuning is required or the alert volume is unusable The subscriber rule set, with the newest rules, is paid
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: BSD-3-Clause	License: GPL-2.0
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.