FIM vs Wazuh

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.

Wazuh unifies XDR and SIEM to analyze security data across endpoints, clouds, and networks for threat detection, incident response, and compliance work. Its rules identify errors, misconfigurations, malicious activity, and policy violations in operating system and application logs. File Integrity Monitoring tracks changes to content, permissions, ownership, and other file attributes. Vulnerability detection compares endpoint software inventories with updated CVE databases. Built-in active responses can take countermeasures, including blocking network access from a threat source. Wazuh can monitor AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Microsoft 365, and GitHub services, virtual machines, and activity. Its integrations guide also covers Elastic Stack, OpenSearch, Splunk, and Amazon Security Lake. Default rulesets provide mappings for PCI DSS, HIPAA, NIST 800-53, TSC, and GDPR, but those mappings do not themselves certify compliance. Wazuh runs on API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, web, and Windows platforms. Its self-hosted open-source plan is free; paid plans start at $571 a month, and a 14-day trial is listed. Agents support Linux, Windows, macOS, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX and require an average of 35 MB of RAM.