HoneyDrive vs HonTel: 2026 Comparison
HoneyDrive is a free honeypots & deception tool. HonTel 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 building out deception infrastructure on a shoestring budget should start with HoneyDrive; ten pre-installed honeypot packages eliminate the months usually spent assembling and configuring individual tools from scratch. The distro's Linux foundation and included analysis tools map cleanly to NIST Detect functions, giving you visibility into early-stage reconnaissance and lateral movement that your perimeter tools will miss. Skip this if your organization needs Windows honeypots or managed cloud-hosted deception; HoneyDrive demands hands-on Linux administration and self-hosted deployment.
Security teams running legacy infrastructure with exposed Telnet ports should deploy HonTel to catch reconnaissance activity that IP reputation lists miss; it's free and requires minimal setup, making it practical for resource-constrained ops teams managing aging systems. With 162 GitHub stars and active maintenance, the tool delivers reliable signal for a narrowly focused attack surface. Skip this if your environment has already eliminated Telnet entirely or if you need honeypots covering SSH, HTTP, or databases; HonTel does one thing well and stops there.
