head to head · open source
PentestGPT vs cve
PentestGPT has 16,313 GitHub stars, 2,855 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. cve has 8,192 stars, 982 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 24 days ago. PentestGPT leads on adoption by 99% (16,313 vs 8,192 stars). PentestGPT is written in Python under MIT; cve is written in HTML under MIT. PentestGPT has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, cve 12%. cve 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
| PentestGPT | cve | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 8.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-07-14 | 2026-10-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 982 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick PentestGPT if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cve if
- You want the cve feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and cve fits your workflow better
About PentestGPT
[![Contributors][contributors shield]][contributors url] [![Forks][forks shield]][forks url] [![Stargazers][stars shield]][stars url] [![Issues][issues shield]][issues url] [![MIT License][license shield]][license url] [![Discord][discord shield]][discord url] PentestGPT AI Powered Autonomous Penetration Testing Agent Published at USENIX Security 2024 Official Website: pentestgpt.com » Research Paper · Report Bug · Request Feature Demo Installation Watch on YouTube PentestGPT in Action Watch on YouTube What's New in v1.0 (Agentic Upgrade) Multi Stage Pipeline The agent works through staged phases (recon →…
read the full PentestGPT overview →
About cve
CVE PoC Almost every publicly available CVE PoC. Current hottest CVEs To see the complete history go here How it works Trickest Workflow Architecture TB; DZ (Too big; didn't zoom): Collect CVE details from cvelist (Shout out to CVE Project!) Split CVEs up by year. Find PoCs for each CVE using 2 techniques: 1. References Gather each CVE's References . Check if any of them points to a PoC using ffuf and a list of keywords Regex: (Thanks @joohoi!) Note : ffuf is awesome for more purposes than just content discovery. Get CVE referenced in HackerOne Reports AllVideoPocsFromHackerOne (Thanks @zeroc00I!) 2. Github…
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Frequently asked questions
Is PentestGPT or cve more popular?
PentestGPT has 16,313 GitHub stars and cve has 8,192. PentestGPT has the larger community by that measure.
Are PentestGPT and cve free?
Both are open source. PentestGPT is licensed under MIT and cve under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PentestGPT and cve?
PentestGPT is written in Python and cve in HTML. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, PentestGPT or cve?
Choose PentestGPT if you want the larger community (16,313 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cve if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.