head to head · open source
pentagi vs crowdsec
pentagi has 24,935 GitHub stars, 3,208 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. crowdsec has 14,956 stars, 719 forks, 296 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pentagi leads on adoption by 67% (24,935 vs 14,956 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; crowdsec is written in Go under MIT. pentagi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, crowdsec 5%. 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
| pentagi | crowdsec | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 719 |
| 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 crowdsec if
- You want the crowdsec feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and crowdsec 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 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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or crowdsec more popular?
pentagi has 24,935 GitHub stars and crowdsec has 14,956. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and crowdsec free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and crowdsec under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and crowdsec?
pentagi is written in Go and crowdsec 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, pentagi or crowdsec?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (24,935 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose crowdsec if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.