Chainsaw vs RTIR: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Chainsaw is a free digital forensics and incident response tool. RTIR is a free digital forensics and incident response tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best digital forensics and incident response fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Incident response teams with heavy Windows environments need Chainsaw for its speed hunting through event logs and registry artifacts without shipping data to the cloud. The tool natively parses 40+ forensic artifact types and integrates Sigma rules directly into searches, letting analysts move from detection to triage in minutes instead of hours. Skip Chainsaw if your team relies on GUI-driven workflows; this is command-line only and demands operators who think in terms of artifact paths and detection logic.
Incident response teams that need to triage and correlate alerts without expensive commercial tools should evaluate Request Tracker for Incident Response; its ticketing workflow reduces noise by letting analysts link related reports and track investigation status in one place. RTIR ships free and has been deployed at scale in academic and government environments for over a decade, meaning the operational stability is proven. Skip this if your team expects a polished UI or built-in threat intelligence feeds; RTIR rewards operators willing to customize and integrate it into existing toolchains.
