Project Icewater vs Stairwell: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Project Icewater is a free threat hunting tool. Stairwell is a commercial threat hunting tool by Stairwell. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best threat hunting 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:
Threat hunting teams with limited budgets and existing YARA workflows should start with Project Icewater; 391 GitHub stars and active community contributions mean the rule set stays current without vendor lock-in or licensing friction. The open-source model lets you fork, customize, and audit detection logic directly instead of trusting a vendor's opaque signature updates. Skip this if your team needs managed rule tuning, confidence scoring, or integration with a commercial platform; Icewater is raw detection primitives, not a hunting platform.
Mid-market and enterprise SOC teams who need to move fast on file-based indicators will find Stairwell's hash and IOC lookup engine faster than bouncing between five different threat intelligence feeds. The tool's integration with Cortex, Chronicle, and CrowdStrike means your analysts can pivot from detection to malware variant discovery without leaving their existing workflows, and the private YARA vault lets you test and store detection logic without exposing your methodology to external platforms. Skip this if your primary pain is endpoint visibility or compliance reporting; Stairwell is built for teams that hunt actively and need to confirm whether a file hash actually matters before escalating.
