Zeek vs Suricata vs Snort (What Each Is For in a Blue Team Stack)

Zeek is strongest as a protocol telemetry and network behavior logging platform. It helps defenders investigate and hunt by producing rich, structured logs (DNS, HTTP, TLS, connections) rather than only alerts.

Suricata and Snort are primarily signature/rule-driven detection engines (with protocol parsing and operational telemetry benefits). They are often used to alert on suspicious traffic patterns and exploit activity. Suricata is commonly favored for modern performance and EVE JSON workflows in many environments.

The best choice depends on the question and team maturity. If you only deploy one sensor type, understand the gap you are accepting: rich metadata without enough signatures, or signatures without enough supporting telemetry.

A practical path is Suricata for alerts plus Zeek for context if you can support both. If you can only run one tool initially, choose based on your immediate need: alerting coverage (Suricata/Snort) or deeper network visibility and investigation context (Zeek).

Start small and tune. Noisy IDS alerts without a triage workflow create analyst fatigue. Rich Zeek logs without a detection process can become unused data. Operational discipline matters more than perfect tooling selection on day one.

Use common scenarios (phishing callback traffic, DNS anomalies, exposed service probes) to compare what each tool shows and what follow-up evidence you still need.

Teach the workflow, not the brand. Start with 'What happened on the network?' then 'What alerted?' then 'What evidence confirms it?' This naturally leads to Zeek + Suricata/Snort roles.

Students should practice one PCAP in Zeek and Suricata to compare outputs. The goal is to learn how telemetry and detection complement each other, not to pick a winner.

Snort remains important historically and operationally in many environments, so it is worth understanding even if your primary modern stack uses Suricata.