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Wick alternative

A Wick alternative that undoes the damage

By ESN Systems, makers of ESN Guardian. Updated November 2, 2026.

Wick is one of the best known security bots on Discord, and plenty of servers run it happily. If you are looking at alternatives, it is usually for one of three reasons: you want anti-raid and backups without a paid plan, you want an attack undone and not just stopped, or you want security and moderation in one bot so fewer bots hold Administrator. This page lays out the differences honestly, with sources, so you can decide.

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What Wick does well

Wick's own docs describe a security-first bot: anti-nuke that watches for mass deletes, bans and other destructive actions, a server lockdown, captcha verification for new members and an automod. Those are the core of a good security setup, and Wick has been doing them for years. If those four things cover everything you need, Wick is a reasonable choice and you may not need to switch.

Where Wick's pages draw a line is between its standard features and Premium. On Wick's Premium page, anti-raid and backups are listed as Premium features. That is a fair business model, but it matters if you run a public server where join raids are the most common attack, or if you want a way to put a server back after something goes wrong.

How Guardian is different

ESN Guardian is a Discord security and moderation bot made by ESN Systems. Three things set it apart from most security bots, Wick included:

• Every protection is included on every server. Anti-nuke, the raid shield, captcha and web verification, structure snapshots and /rewind, tickets and the dashboard all work without paying. Guardian Premium costs $1.99 a month or $19.90 a year and only changes how the bot looks in your server: its name, avatar, banner and bio. Protection is identical with or without it.
• It undoes attacks, not just stops them. Guardian keeps snapshots of your server's structure. If someone deletes channels or roles, /rewind and the one-click undo button on the log put them back, with permissions. /snapshot diff shows exactly what changed since the last snapshot.
• It watches your other bots. A common way servers get nuked today is a trusted bot whose token leaks. Guardian's Sentry learns how each bot normally behaves and steps in when one suddenly floods, pings everyone or makes bulk changes. /botguard power shows which bots hold dangerous permissions.

Wick vs Guardian at a glance

The table below is the same sourced comparison that sits on our home page. A tick means the feature is listed on that bot's public pages. A gem means it is listed as paid only. A dash means we could not find it listed, which is not the same as "it does not exist", so check the bot's own docs if a row matters to you.

Swipe the table sideways to see every bot →

✓ = listed · 💎 = paid tier only · — = not listed on their public pages. Checked Nov 2, 2026. Wick: Wick docs and Wick Premium ⁴ (anti-raid and backups are listed as Premium). RaidProtect: raidprotect.bot and docs. Dyno: FAQ ² (points to its Automod module for anti-nuke/anti-raid) and Premium ³ (billed $49.99/year). NightWatch and Strafe have no public website or docs, so their columns come from their public Discord bot profiles, NightWatch's slash-command list and the log posts each bot made while it ran in our own server. Features change on every bot, so test on a spare server before you switch.

Switching from Wick to Guardian, step by step

You do not have to rip Wick out on day one. Two security bots fighting over the same attacker can get messy, so the safest path is to run Guardian alongside Wick in alert mode first, then switch.

1. Add Guardian with the invite below and keep every permission ticked. Then go to Server Settings → Roles and drag the ESN GUARDIAN role near the top. Guardian can only act on roles and members below its own role.
2. Run /guardian setup. Pick a preset (small community, large public server or max lockdown) or answer four quick questions. Guardian makes a log channel and checks its own permissions.
3. Trust your staff. Use /antinuke trust for your admins and co-owners. The server owner and trusted users are never punished by Guardian's automatic protection. For short jobs, /whitelist grant gives someone trust that expires on its own, for example ban rights for two hours.
4. Take a first snapshot with /snapshot take so /rewind has something to restore from, and look over the security grade with /audit report. It points out the server settings that weaken you, like too many people with Administrator.
5. Recreate your Wick rules. Set up captcha with /captcha or the verify panel with /config verification, then tune automod and the raid shield (/raid config).
6. Remove Wick once you are happy with Guardian's logs. Kick the bot and delete its role so it no longer holds permissions.

When Wick might still be the better fit

If your team already knows Wick inside out, has its Premium, and never needs moderation, tickets or levels from the same bot, there may be no reason to move. Guardian's advantage is biggest for servers that want everything included, want attacks reversed automatically, and would rather run one well-permissioned bot than four.

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