AD Tripwires vs smart-honeypot PHP Script: 2026 Comparison
AD Tripwires is a commercial honeypots & deception tool by Horizon3.ai. smart-honeypot PHP Script is a free honeypots & deception tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best honeypots & deception fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, company size fit, deployment model, here is our conclusion:
Mid-market and enterprise security teams that treat Active Directory as a detection problem, not just a hardening problem, should evaluate AD Tripwires. It deploys honeypot objects directly into AD to catch reconnaissance and lateral movement before it reaches production assets, and the integration with Horizon3.ai's NodeZero platform means you validate that your tripwires actually work against your real attack surface. Skip this if your team lacks the AD expertise to maintain decoy objects or if you're looking for a tool that also handles response automation; AD Tripwires is detection and alerting only.
Small teams and solo developers protecting web forms from automated harvesting will find real value in smart-honeypot PHP Script because it requires no external dependencies or API calls, meaning zero operational overhead and no vendor lock-in. The script is lightweight enough to drop into existing PHP applications in under five minutes, and the 18 GitHub stars come from practitioners who've deployed it in production without incident. Skip this if you need honeypot coverage across multiple application frameworks or infrastructure layers; this is PHP-form defense, not a platform.
