head to head · open source
PayloadsAllTheThings vs vuls
PayloadsAllTheThings has 80,960 GitHub stars, 17,377 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped 23 days ago. vuls has 12,263 stars, 1,243 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PayloadsAllTheThings leads on adoption by 560% (80,960 vs 12,263 stars). PayloadsAllTheThings is written in Python under MIT; vuls is written in Go under GPL-3.0. PayloadsAllTheThings has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, vuls 10%. vuls 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
| PayloadsAllTheThings | vuls | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-27 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 17K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 vuls if
- You want the vuls feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and vuls 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 vuls
Vuls is an agent less vulnerability scanner written in Go and licensed under GPL 3.0, aimed at system administrators and security teams that must find and track known vulnerabilities across Linux, FreeBSD, Windows and macOS hosts, containers, WordPress installs, programming language libraries and network devices without installing an agent on every machine.
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Frequently asked questions
Is PayloadsAllTheThings or vuls more popular?
PayloadsAllTheThings has 80,960 GitHub stars and vuls has 12,263. PayloadsAllTheThings has the larger community by that measure.
Are PayloadsAllTheThings and vuls free?
Both are open source. PayloadsAllTheThings is licensed under MIT and vuls under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PayloadsAllTheThings and vuls?
PayloadsAllTheThings is written in Python and vuls 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 vuls?
Choose PayloadsAllTheThings if you want the larger community (80,960 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose vuls if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.