head to head · open source
pentagi vs emba
pentagi has 33,210 GitHub stars, 5,183 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. emba has 3,749 stars, 344 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pentagi leads on adoption by 786% (33,210 vs 3,749 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; emba is written in Shell under GPL-3.0. pentagi has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, emba 9%. emba was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (penetration-testing), 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 | emba | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-10-22 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 344 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pentagi if
- You weight community size — 33K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick emba if
- You want the emba feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and emba fits your workflow better
About pentagi
PentAGI P enetration testing A rtificial G eneral I ntelligence Join the Community! Connect with security researchers, AI enthusiasts, and fellow ethical hackers. Get support, share insights, and stay updated with the latest PentAGI developments. ⠀ Table of Contents Overview Features Architecture Agent Supervision Quick Start Agent Docker Access Running Several Instances How to Use PentAGI After Login API Access LLM Provider Configuration Ollama OpenAI Anthropic Google AI (Gemini) AWS Bedrock DeepSeek GLM Kimi Qwen MiniMax Advanced Setup Langfuse Integration Monitoring and Observability Knowledge Graph…
read the full pentagi overview →
About emba
EMBA The security analyzer for firmware of embedded devices EMBA is designed as the central firmware analysis and SBOM tool for penetration testers, product security teams, developers and responsible product managers. It supports the complete security analysis process starting with firmware extraction , doing static analysis and dynamic analysis via emulation, building the SBOM and finally generating a web based vulnerability report. EMBA automatically discovers possible weak spots and vulnerabilities in firmware. Examples are insecure binaries, old and outdated software components, potentially vulnerable…
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Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or emba more popular?
pentagi has 33,210 GitHub stars and emba has 3,749. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and emba free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and emba under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and emba?
pentagi is written in Go and emba in Shell. 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 emba?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (33,210 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose emba if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.