head to head · open source
crowdsec vs reconftw
crowdsec has 14,956 GitHub stars, 719 forks, 296 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reconftw has 8,143 stars, 1,236 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. crowdsec leads on adoption by 84% (14,956 vs 8,143 stars). crowdsec is written in Go under MIT; reconftw is written in Shell under MIT. crowdsec has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, reconftw 15%. crowdsec was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| crowdsec | reconftw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 719 | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick crowdsec if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick reconftw if
- You want the reconftw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and reconftw fits your workflow better
About crowdsec
CrowdSec is an open source, MIT licensed intrusion detection and prevention system, WAF and bot detection engine that analyses logs and HTTP requests and blocks malicious IPs at the firewall, reverse proxy or CDN, built for Linux, Windows, Docker and Kubernetes operators who want community sourced threat intelligence sitting behind their own infrastructure.
read the full crowdsec overview →
About reconftw
reconFTW is an automated reconnaissance framework, written in Shell under the MIT licence, that runs a curated chain of security tools against a target domain to enumerate subdomains and hosts, gather OSINT, analyse web surfaces, and check for vulnerabilities; it is built for security researchers, penetration testers, and bug bounty hunters.
read the full reconftw overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is crowdsec or reconftw more popular?
crowdsec has 14,956 GitHub stars and reconftw has 8,143. crowdsec has the larger community by that measure.
Are crowdsec and reconftw free?
Both are open source. crowdsec is licensed under MIT and reconftw under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between crowdsec and reconftw?
crowdsec is written in Go and reconftw 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, crowdsec or reconftw?
Choose crowdsec if you want the larger community (14,956 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose reconftw if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.