head to head · open source
pentagi vs Pentest-Swarm-AI
pentagi has 25,255 GitHub stars, 3,246 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Pentest-Swarm-AI has 2,733 stars, 499 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. pentagi leads on adoption by 824% (25,255 vs 2,733 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; Pentest-Swarm-AI is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. pentagi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Pentest-Swarm-AI 18%. pentagi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-agents, offensive-security, 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 | Pentest-Swarm-AI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-03 | 2026-10-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 499 |
| 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 Pentest-Swarm-AI if
- You want the Pentest-Swarm-AI feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Pentest-Swarm-AI 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 Pentest-Swarm-AI
Pentest Swarm AI is an open source, self hosted autonomous penetration testing framework in Go that puts a swarm of AI agents against APIs and web applications for authorized security work.
read the full Pentest-Swarm-AI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or Pentest-Swarm-AI more popular?
pentagi has 25,255 GitHub stars and Pentest-Swarm-AI has 2,733. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and Pentest-Swarm-AI free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and Pentest-Swarm-AI under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and Pentest-Swarm-AI?
pentagi is written in Go and Pentest-Swarm-AI 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 Pentest-Swarm-AI?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (25,255 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Pentest-Swarm-AI if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.