head to head · open source
pentagi vs pacu
pentagi has 34,176 GitHub stars, 5,387 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. pacu has 5,398 stars, 801 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. pentagi leads on adoption by 533% (34,176 vs 5,398 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; pacu is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. pentagi has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, pacu 15%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| pentagi | pacu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-13 | 2026-05-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 801 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pentagi if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pacu if
- You want the pacu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pacu 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 pacu
Quick reference Where to get help : the Rhino Security Labs Discord, or Stack Overflow Where to file issues : Maintained by : Rhino Security Labs What is Pacu? Pacu is an open source AWS exploitation framework, designed for offensive security testing against cloud environments. Created and maintained by Rhino Security Labs, Pacu allows penetration testers to exploit configuration flaws within an AWS account, using modules to easily expand its functionality. Current modules enable a range of attacks, including user privilege escalation, backdooring of IAM users, attacking vulnerable Lambda functions, and much…
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Threat Detection & Response projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Threat Detection & Response field.
Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or pacu more popular?
pentagi has 34,176 GitHub stars and pacu has 5,398. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and pacu free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and pacu under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and pacu?
pentagi is written in Go and pacu 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 pacu?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (34,176 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pacu if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.