ssh-auth-logger vs SSHHiPot: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
ssh-auth-logger is a free honeypots & deception tool. SSHHiPot 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 flat networks or isolated honeypot segments will get real value from ssh-auth-logger for one reason: it logs every SSH authentication attempt in structured JSON, making it trivial to pipe into your existing SIEM without custom parsing. Free pricing and a 26-star GitHub footprint mean minimal friction to deploy a decoy SSH server alongside production infrastructure. Skip this if you need honeypot management at scale or cross-protocol deception; ssh-auth-logger does SSH authentication logging and nothing else.
Security teams hunting lateral movement and SSH compromise patterns will get the most from SSHHiPot because its high-interaction design captures actual attacker behavior and proxy commands instead of just connection logs. The 173 GitHub stars and active maintenance signal a tool that security practitioners actually run, not one abandoned in a repository. Skip this if you need production-grade alerting or centralized log ingestion; SSHHiPot is a detection sensor first, and you'll be writing your own parsing and forwarding logic to feed signals downstream.
