head to head · open source
codex-security vs pentest-ai
codex-security has 10,750 GitHub stars, 797 forks, 220 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pentest-ai has 1,677 stars, 314 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. codex-security leads on adoption by 541% (10,750 vs 1,677 stars). codex-security is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; pentest-ai is written in Python under MIT. codex-security has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, pentest-ai 19%. codex-security was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-security, cybersecurity, devsecops), 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
| codex-security | pentest-ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 797 | ⑂ 314 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick codex-security if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pentest-ai if
- You want the pentest-ai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pentest-ai fits your workflow better
About codex-security
Codex Security is OpenAI's command line tool and TypeScript SDK, published on npm as @openai/codex security , that finds, validates, and fixes security vulnerabilities in a codebase, and it serves application security engineers, DevSecOps teams, and developers who want that scanning to run from their own terminal or CI.
read the full codex-security overview →
About pentest-ai
Pentest AI is an open source Python project that connects an AI client or model to a penetration testing workflow. It belongs to the AI security and application security ecosystem, and it is distributed under the MIT license. The project is published as ptai on PyPI and can be used through MCP, the CLI, or CI.
read the full pentest-ai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is codex-security or pentest-ai more popular?
codex-security has 10,750 GitHub stars and pentest-ai has 1,677. codex-security has the larger community by that measure.
Are codex-security and pentest-ai free?
Both are open source. codex-security is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pentest-ai under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between codex-security and pentest-ai?
codex-security is written in TypeScript and pentest-ai in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, codex-security or pentest-ai?
Choose codex-security if you want the larger community (10,750 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pentest-ai if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.