head to head · open source
cve vs Nettacker
cve has 8,087 GitHub stars, 977 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Nettacker has 5,616 stars, 1,185 forks, 249 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. cve leads on adoption by 44% (8,087 vs 5,616 stars). cve is written in HTML under MIT; Nettacker is written in Python under Apache-2.0. cve has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Nettacker 21%. cve was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (cve, penetration-testing, pentesting), 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
| cve | Nettacker | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.1K | ★ 5.6K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | HTML | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 977 | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cve if
- You weight community size — 8.1K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Nettacker if
- You want the Nettacker feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Nettacker fits your workflow better
About cve
cve is an automatically generated, MIT licensed repository from Trickest that gathers almost every publicly available CVE Proof of Concept and publishes it as browsable markdown files, made for penetration testers, red teams and vulnerability researchers who need to find public exploits for a given identifier.
About Nettacker
OWASP Nettacker is an open source, Python based automated penetration testing and information gathering framework for cyber security professionals and ethical hackers who need to run reconnaissance, vulnerability assessment, and network security audits efficiently.
read the full Nettacker overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cve or Nettacker more popular?
cve has 8,087 GitHub stars and Nettacker has 5,616. cve has the larger community by that measure.
Are cve and Nettacker free?
Both are open source. cve is licensed under MIT and Nettacker under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cve and Nettacker?
cve is written in HTML and Nettacker 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, cve or Nettacker?
Choose cve if you want the larger community (8,087 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Nettacker if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.