Falco vs Sysdig: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown code provides a comparison between Falco and Sysdig, highlighting their key differences.

1. Installation and Set-up: Falco is an open-source project developed by Sysdig and is designed specifically for container and Kubernetes environments. It requires installing a kernel module and a user-space component, making it ready to use. On the other hand, Sysdig is a commercial product offered by Sysdig Inc., available as a pre-packaged container or a standalone installation.

2. Alerting and Monitoring Capabilities: Falco focuses on runtime security and detection of suspicious activities in containers and Kubernetes. It is tailored towards detecting and alerting on syscall violations, file activity, network activity, and process activity. In contrast, Sysdig provides a more comprehensive monitoring and troubleshooting solution, offering visualization, deep metrics, and inspection capabilities beyond just runtime security.

3. Rule Management and Flexibility: Falco allows users to define custom rules inline or from external files using a simple to understand rule language. These custom rules enable Falco to detect specific security issues. On the other hand, Sysdig provides a set of predefined rules that can be enabled or disabled. Custom rule creation is not supported in Sysdig, limiting its flexibility in detecting specific security events.

4. Integration with other Tools and Platforms: Falco can be easily integrated with other tools and platforms, acting as an additional level of security across the infrastructure. It can send alerts to various external systems like Slack, email, or third-party security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, enhancing cross-platform compatibility. Sysdig, being a commercial product, also supports integration with different tools but may have some limitations based on the specific licensing agreements.

5. Performance and Overhead: Falco, being a lightweight tool, has relatively low performance overhead on the system, ensuring minimal impact on the container environment. It leverages kernel-level tracing and eBPF technology, making it highly efficient. On the other hand, Sysdig, being more feature-rich and comprehensive, may impose a higher performance overhead due to its additional functionalities and capabilities.

6. Community and Support: Falco has a large active community of contributors and users, providing ongoing support and continuous enhancements to the project. The community actively participates in sharing rules, offering help, and addressing issues faced by users. Sysdig, being a commercial product, offers paid support and enterprise-level assistance for its users.

In summary, Falco and Sysdig differ in terms of installation and set-up process, their focus on runtime security vs. comprehensive monitoring, rule management flexibility, integration capabilities, performance impact, and community support.