SSHoney vs Hornet: 2026 Comparison
SSHoney is a free honeypots & deception tool. Hornet 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 exposed SSH services who want free, lightweight SSH connection logging should deploy SSHoney. It requires minimal setup, runs as a standalone binary, and captures authentication attempts without agent overhead. Skip this if you need centralized threat intelligence, automated response, or integration with existing SIEM tooling; SSHoney logs locally and offers no native connectors, so you're building glue code yourself.
Small teams running SSH-exposed infrastructure who need fast honeypot deployment without licensing friction should start with Hornet; its multiple virtual hosts and sandboxed filesystems let you simulate realistic attack surfaces that catch reconnaissance patterns agentless tools miss. The free pricing and 24 GitHub stars signal active maintenance from practitioners rather than enterprise-first bloat. Skip this if you need persistent threat intelligence feeds or automated response integration; Hornet excels at tactical deception but treats detection as the end goal, not the start of your incident workflow.
