head to head · open source
afrog vs emba
afrog has 4,418 GitHub stars, 484 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. emba has 3,672 stars, 325 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. afrog leads on adoption by 20% (4,418 vs 3,672 stars). afrog is written in HTML under MIT; emba is written in Shell under GPL-3.0. afrog has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, emba 9%. emba was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (penetration-testing), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| afrog | emba | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.4K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | HTML | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 484 | ⑂ 325 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick afrog if
- You weight community size — 4.4K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick emba if
- You want the emba feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and emba fits your workflow better
About afrog
afrog is an MIT licensed vulnerability scanner built for bug bounty, penetration testing and red teaming, aimed at testers who need fast verification of web targets and network services with low false positives.
read the full afrog overview →
About emba
EMBA is the open source security analyzer for firmware of embedded devices, a Shell based command line tool that carries penetration testers, product security teams, developers and product managers from firmware extraction through static analysis, emulation based dynamic analysis and SBOM creation to a web based vulnerability report.
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Frequently asked questions
Is afrog or emba more popular?
afrog has 4,418 GitHub stars and emba has 3,672. afrog has the larger community by that measure.
Are afrog and emba free?
Both are open source. afrog is licensed under MIT and emba under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between afrog and emba?
afrog is written in HTML and emba in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, afrog or emba?
Choose afrog if you want the larger community (4,418 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose emba if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.