head to head · open source
pentagi vs reconftw
pentagi has 24,880 GitHub stars, 3,204 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. reconftw has 8,138 stars, 1,235 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pentagi leads on adoption by 206% (24,880 vs 8,138 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; reconftw is written in Shell under MIT. pentagi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, reconftw 15%. reconftw 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 | reconftw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-10 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 reconftw if
- You want the reconftw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and reconftw 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 reconftw
reconFTW is an automated reconnaissance framework, written in Shell under the MIT licence, that runs a curated chain of security tools against a target domain to enumerate subdomains and hosts, gather OSINT, analyse web surfaces, and check for vulnerabilities; it is built for security researchers, penetration testers, and bug bounty hunters.
read the full reconftw overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or reconftw more popular?
pentagi has 24,880 GitHub stars and reconftw has 8,138. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and reconftw free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and reconftw under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and reconftw?
pentagi is written in Go and reconftw 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 reconftw?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (24,880 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose reconftw if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.