head to head · open source
PayloadsAllTheThings vs ProjectDiscovery
PayloadsAllTheThings has 80,960 GitHub stars, 17,377 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped 23 days ago. ProjectDiscovery has 31,290 stars, 3,876 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PayloadsAllTheThings leads on adoption by 159% (80,960 vs 31,290 stars). PayloadsAllTheThings is written in Python under MIT; ProjectDiscovery is written in Go under MIT. PayloadsAllTheThings has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, ProjectDiscovery 12%. ProjectDiscovery was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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
| PayloadsAllTheThings | ProjectDiscovery | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 31K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-27 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 17K | ⑂ 3.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick PayloadsAllTheThings if
- You weight community size — 81K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ProjectDiscovery if
- You want the ProjectDiscovery feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ProjectDiscovery fits your workflow better
About PayloadsAllTheThings
Payloads All The Things is an MIT licensed, community maintained collection of web application security payloads, bypass techniques and pentest methodology notes, written for penetration testers, bug bounty hunters, CTF players and red teamers who need a reference they can copy from during an engagement.
read the full PayloadsAllTheThings overview →
About ProjectDiscovery
Nuclei is a high performance, open source vulnerability scanner built by ProjectDiscovery, part of the ProjectDiscovery ecosystem. It operates as a CLI tool using a simple YAML based DSL to define custom vulnerability checks, enabling precise, real world exploitation simulation to eliminate false positives.
read the full ProjectDiscovery overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is PayloadsAllTheThings or ProjectDiscovery more popular?
PayloadsAllTheThings has 80,960 GitHub stars and ProjectDiscovery has 31,290. PayloadsAllTheThings has the larger community by that measure.
Are PayloadsAllTheThings and ProjectDiscovery free?
Both are open source. PayloadsAllTheThings is licensed under MIT and ProjectDiscovery under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PayloadsAllTheThings and ProjectDiscovery?
PayloadsAllTheThings is written in Python and ProjectDiscovery in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, PayloadsAllTheThings or ProjectDiscovery?
Choose PayloadsAllTheThings if you want the larger community (80,960 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ProjectDiscovery if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.