Tink vs Wazuh
Wazuh is an open-source SIEM/XDR. It ships a manager, an OpenSearch indexer, a dashboard, and agents. It is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux host, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Wazuh indexes security events. Tink answers “why is this VPS sick?”
Accidental sysadmins land on Wazuh because it is the free SIEM: FIM, SCA, vuln scans, and auth-log rules. Then disk is at 91%, nginx dies, and last night's rule 5710 hits do not say what to run. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not a decoder XML file.
Tink is the other job: detect the issue on the machine, say why it happened in plain English, propose the command, and run it only after you approve. Keep using Wazuh if you already want a SIEM. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | Wazuh |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours to days — Wazuh manager, indexer, dashboard, then an agent on every host |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | SIEM/XDR: FIM, SCA, vuln scans, log rules — not a fleet mechanic |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | Open source. You still pay the manager VM, indexer disk, and the person who tunes rules |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | OpenSearch heap, rule noise, agent enrollment, and whether anyone watched disk while alerts fired |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | Security events into a manager. Wazuh does not forecast fill time or propose a restart |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | ossec.conf, decoder/rule XML, indexer retention, and which agent groups get which SCA policy |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | No — you read rule IDs, FIM diffs, and SCA checks yourself |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Detects and alerts — Wazuh cannot restart nginx, free disk, or rotate a cert |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Manager integrations after you wire Slack/email/PagerDuty and quiet the rule flood |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Event-driven only — Wazuh does not forecast fill time or a quiet NIC going bad later |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Yes — that is a Wazuh rule. It still will not say the disk is at 91% |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Agent disconnected if you built that rule — no presence ping to Telegram by default |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | Not included — the Wazuh dashboard is not a customer-facing status page |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | Not included — a rule hit list is not a plain-English fleet narrative |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — wire the manager into PagerDuty |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | Wazuh dashboard. No mechanic you text when /var filled |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — manager topology, indexer ops, decoders, and Wazuh's own rule IDs |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Security teams that already want a SIEM/XDR and will still SSH in when the box is sick |
When Wazuh is the right choice
Keep using Wazuh when you already want that exact job:
- SIEM/XDR — you need FIM, SCA, CVE scans, and rule IDs, not a fleet digest.
- Compliance evidence — PCI/HIPAA-style file integrity and SCA reports live in the Wazuh dashboard.
- You will run the cluster — a manager, indexer, and dashboard are acceptable ops, not a 30-second install.
- No conversation layer wanted — some security teams prefer a SIEM UI and will never use a mechanic.
The real cost of “just run Wazuh”
The agents are free. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
- A complete SIEM still means you SSH into the host and change the box by hand when it gets sick
- Host fill, nginx, certs, and a quiet NIC never appear unless you built extra checks
- A filling /var is a Tink disk warning on every scan — Wazuh stays a security event stream until a rule matches
- A single VPS with nobody logged in still needs a mechanic, not another OpenSearch node
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than the engineer who tunes Wazuh after the outage, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet rule ID will not type.
No SIEM homework. No silent host. One command install.
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