head to head · open source
pentagi vs WhatWeb
pentagi has 24,935 GitHub stars, 3,208 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. WhatWeb has 6,855 stars, 1,013 forks, 51 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. pentagi leads on adoption by 264% (24,935 vs 6,855 stars). pentagi is written in Go under MIT; WhatWeb is written in Ruby under GPL-2.0. pentagi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, WhatWeb 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.
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Side by side
| pentagi | WhatWeb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-04-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 WhatWeb if
- You want the WhatWeb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and WhatWeb 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 WhatWeb
WhatWeb is a free, GPL 2.0 licensed web scanner written in Ruby that identifies the technologies powering a website — content management systems, blogging platforms, analytics packages, JavaScript libraries, web servers and embedded devices — and it is built for penetration testers, security analysts and network defenders who need to answer the question, "What is that Website?"
read the full WhatWeb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pentagi or WhatWeb more popular?
pentagi has 24,935 GitHub stars and WhatWeb has 6,855. pentagi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pentagi and WhatWeb free?
Both are open source. pentagi is licensed under MIT and WhatWeb under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pentagi and WhatWeb?
pentagi is written in Go and WhatWeb in Ruby. 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 WhatWeb?
Choose pentagi if you want the larger community (24,935 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose WhatWeb if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.