head to head · open source
pentagi vs malicious-pdf
pentagi has 25,199 GitHub stars, 3,239 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped yesterday. malicious-pdf has 4,449 stars, 588 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. pentagi leads on adoption by 466% (25,199 vs 4,449 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; malicious-pdf is written in Python under BSD-2-Clause. pentagi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, malicious-pdf 13%. pentagi 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 | malicious-pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MIT | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-02 | 2026-08-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 588 |
| 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 malicious-pdf if
- You want the malicious-pdf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and malicious-pdf 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 malicious-pdf
malicious pdf is a Python generator of 67 malicious PDF test files for penetration testers, bug bounty hunters, and red teams who need to probe how PDF viewers, converters, and web applications handle hostile document content.
read the full malicious-pdf overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or malicious-pdf more popular?
pentagi has 25,199 GitHub stars and malicious-pdf has 4,449. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and malicious-pdf free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and malicious-pdf under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and malicious-pdf?
pentagi is written in Go and malicious-pdf in Python. 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 malicious-pdf?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (25,199 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose malicious-pdf if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.