Nozomi Networks Nozomi Guardian vs SMOD: 2026 Comparison
Nozomi Networks Nozomi Guardian is a commercial industrial control system security tool by Nozomi Networks. SMOD is a free penetration testing tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best industrial control system security fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, integrations, company size fit, here is our conclusion:
Nozomi Networks Nozomi Guardian
Mid-market and enterprise OT teams that lack visibility into their operational networks will benefit most from Nozomi Guardian's passive monitoring approach, which discovers and inventories assets without disrupting production systems. The platform covers all four NIST ID and DE functions, but prioritizes asset discovery and continuous anomaly detection over incident response capabilities; if your team needs playbook-guided remediation built into the tool itself rather than handed off to ticketing systems, you'll do more manual work than vendors suggest. Skip this if you're running primarily IT infrastructure without significant OT/IoT footprint, or if your brownfield OT environment has devices that don't speak standard protocols Nozomi supports.
Operational technology teams defending industrial control systems with Modbus deployments should pick SMOD for its modular design, which lets you add offensive capabilities only to the protocols and network segments that matter to your environment instead of licensing a bloated framework. The 93 GitHub stars and active maintenance signal a tool maintained by practitioners who understand Modbus specifics rather than generic ICS vendors. Skip this if you need a polished GUI or vendor support contracts; SMOD is command-line only and lives on GitHub.
