Compare
HoneyBox vs StingBox — and the rest of the field.
Same job (decoy that screams when probed). Different philosophy on where your alerts and logs live.
| Capability | HoneyBox | StingBox | DIY honeypot | Cloud IDS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to first log | Minutes | Minutes | Hours to days | Depends on agent & account |
| Cloud required | No | Yes — cloud dashboard & check-in | Usually no | Yes |
| Data residency | Your SD card / LAN | Vendor cloud + alerts to you | Wherever you put it | Vendor cloud |
| Management | LAN web UI + local PWA | Central cloud dashboard | DIY tooling | Vendor console |
| Multi-protocol decoys | Built-in suite | Low-interaction honeypot | You assemble & maintain | Detection, not decoys |
| Alerting | Local PWA, SMTP, webhooks — you choose | Email, SMS, voice via cloud | You wire it | Vendor pipelines |
| Ongoing cost | Device — no subscription | Hardware + cloud service model | Your time & power | Recurring seat/sensor fees |
| Best for | Local-first home lab & small office | Teams that want cloud-managed alerts | Tinkerers with spare cycles | Org-wide SOC workflows |
Where StingBox shines
StingBox is a mature plug-and-play honeypot with polished cloud alerting (email, text, voice) and a multi-device dashboard. If you want a vendor-hosted console watching many sites, that’s their lane.
Where HoneyBox differs
HoneyBox never requires a cloud account. Logs stay on your SD card; the companion PWA talks to the device on your LAN. Optional SMTP and webhooks are yours to point — not a mandatory telemetry path.
DIY is noble. StingBox is a strong cloud-managed appliance. Cloud IDS is powerful at enterprise scale. HoneyBox is for operators who want a purpose-built decoy without babysitting VMs or shipping event data to someone else’s dashboard.