Elastic Security vs FIM

Elastic Security combines SIEM, XDR, endpoint security, and cloud security for detecting, preventing, and responding to cyber threats. Detection options include prebuilt and customizable rules, machine-learning anomaly detection, and threat hunting. Elastic Defend uses machine learning, behavioral analysis, and prebuilt rules to address endpoint threats; cloud capabilities cover cloud and Kubernetes security posture management, workload protection, and vulnerability management. Elastic Workflows can automate triage, enrichment, response, notifications, and case management. Elastic lists more than 400 prebuilt integrations and up to 1,000 total security and data-source integrations, alongside native OpenTelemetry support. The software can run on Elastic Cloud or self-managed infrastructure, with APIs and query options KQL, Lucene, and ES|QL. The free Basic plan includes SIEM, XDR, and host security analysis. Elastic Cloud Hosted and Serverless offer a 14-day free trial. Security Analytics Essentials is listed at $0.09 a month, with retention priced separately; Essentials also includes endpoint protection, while retention is priced separately at as low as $0.017 per retained GB per month. Elastic Cloud uses HTTPS for internet-facing and inter-node communications and encrypts cluster data at rest.

FIM is free, open-source software for monitoring file systems on premises. It watches files in the background, keeps historical information, emits events when changes occur, creates hashes, and analyzes content, attributes, ownership, and permissions. On Linux, the Audit daemon can identify who caused an event and which command produced it. Events may be written locally, sent over a network, or sent to both destinations. Documentation lists Elasticsearch 8.x or OpenSearch 2.x and Splunk indexer 9.x integrations, with only one integration active at a time. FIM runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS. Installation guidance lists Ubuntu Xenial or later, CentOS 7 or later, Windows 7 or Server 2016 or later, and macOS Big Sur or later. Minimum requirements are one CPU core, 128 MB memory, and 1 GB storage, with storage use increasing over time. The maker says support is free and provides an email contact.