head to head · open source
pentagi vs ecapture
pentagi has 25,318 GitHub stars, 3,246 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. ecapture has 15,490 stars, 1,647 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pentagi leads on adoption by 63% (25,318 vs 15,490 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; ecapture is written in C under Apache-2.0. pentagi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, ecapture 11%. ecapture was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (golang), 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
| pentagi | ecapture | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pentagi if
- You weight community size — 25K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ecapture if
- You want the ecapture feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and ecapture fits your workflow better
About pentagi
PentAGI is an MIT licensed, self hosted multi agent system written in Go that runs fully autonomous AI agents to perform complex penetration testing tasks inside an isolated Docker sandbox, built for information security professionals, researchers, and enthusiasts.
read the full pentagi overview →
About ecapture
eCapture (旁观者) is an open source eBPF tool that captures SSL/TLS plaintext, database queries, and shell history on Linux and Android for security auditors, network engineers, and self hosters who need visibility into encrypted traffic without intercepting it.
read the full ecapture overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or ecapture more popular?
pentagi has 25,318 GitHub stars and ecapture has 15,490. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and ecapture free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and ecapture under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and ecapture?
pentagi is written in Go and ecapture in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, pentagi or ecapture?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (25,318 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ecapture if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.