head to head · open source
nono vs pentest-ai
nono has 4,140 GitHub stars, 274 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. pentest-ai has 1,685 stars, 314 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. nono leads on adoption by 146% (4,140 vs 1,685 stars). nono is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; pentest-ai is written in Python under MIT. nono has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, pentest-ai 19%. nono was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai-security, mcp), 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
| nono | pentest-ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.1K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 274 | ⑂ 314 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nono if
- You weight community size — 4.1K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pentest-ai if
- You want the pentest-ai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pentest-ai fits your workflow better
About nono
nono is a Rust project for secure multiplexed execution paths for AI agents. It lives in AI security and privacy. It is built by the team that brought Sigstore. It aims to run agents with zero trust, zero setup, and zero latency.
About pentest-ai
Pentest AI is an open source Python project that connects an AI client or model to a penetration testing workflow. It belongs to the AI security and application security ecosystem, and it is distributed under the MIT license. The project is published as ptai on PyPI and can be used through MCP, the CLI, or CI.
read the full pentest-ai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nono or pentest-ai more popular?
nono has 4,140 GitHub stars and pentest-ai has 1,685. nono has the larger community by that measure.
Are nono and pentest-ai free?
Both are open source. nono is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pentest-ai under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nono and pentest-ai?
nono is written in Rust and pentest-ai 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, nono or pentest-ai?
Choose nono if you want the larger community (4,140 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pentest-ai if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.