cowrie2neo vs mhn-core-docker: 2026 Comparison
cowrie2neo is a free honeypots & deception tool. mhn-core-docker 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 available product data, here is our conclusion:
Security teams running Cowrie honeypots who need to hunt for attack patterns across interactions will find value in cowrie2neo's graph database approach, which reveals connection chains that flat log analysis obscures. The tool is free and lightweight enough to deploy alongside existing Cowrie instances without infrastructure overhead. Skip this if your team lacks Neo4j expertise or runs honeypots purely for alerting; the setup and query work required means this is best suited to analysts who treat honeypot data as a research asset, not just a detection feed.
Security teams building internal threat intelligence labs or validating detection rules will find real value in mhn-core-docker because it collapses the friction of spinning up a multi-honeypot network; the Docker containerization cuts deployment time from hours to minutes, and the geolocation-enriched event stream gives you immediately actionable attack patterns. The 35 GitHub stars and active cowrie/dionaea integration suggest steady maintenance for a free tool. Skip this if you need managed honeypot infrastructure with SLA guarantees or commercial support; mhn-core-docker requires hands-on ops work and assumes comfort debugging containerized environments.
