head to head · open source
pentagi vs PentestGPT
pentagi has 24,722 GitHub stars, 3,177 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. PentestGPT has 15,521 stars, 2,700 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. pentagi leads on adoption by 59% (24,722 vs 15,521 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; PentestGPT is written in Python under MIT. pentagi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, PentestGPT 17%. 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 | PentestGPT | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 16K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-10 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| 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 PentestGPT if
- You want the PentestGPT feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and PentestGPT 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 PentestGPT
PentestGPT is an MIT licensed Python framework that uses large language models to run automated penetration tests and CTF challenges, aimed at penetration testers, security engineers and CTF players who want an agent to drive the tooling rather than working through it by hand.
read the full PentestGPT overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or PentestGPT more popular?
pentagi has 24,722 GitHub stars and PentestGPT has 15,521. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and PentestGPT free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and PentestGPT under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and PentestGPT?
pentagi is written in Go and PentestGPT 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 PentestGPT?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (24,722 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose PentestGPT if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.