head to head · open source
PentestGPT vs fsociety
PentestGPT has 15,931 GitHub stars, 2,782 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. fsociety has 1,850 stars, 214 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. PentestGPT leads on adoption by 761% (15,931 vs 1,850 stars). PentestGPT is written in Python under MIT; fsociety is written in Python under MIT. PentestGPT has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, fsociety 12%. fsociety was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (penetration-testing, python), 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 | fsociety | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-07-14 | 2026-10-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.8K | ⑂ 214 |
| 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 fsociety if
- You want the fsociety feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and fsociety fits your workflow better
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 →
About fsociety
fsociety is a modular penetration testing framework written in Python, distributed under the MIT licence, and intended for security practitioners who want one command line entry point for discovering and running the tools they need.
read the full fsociety overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is PentestGPT or fsociety more popular?
PentestGPT has 15,931 GitHub stars and fsociety has 1,850. PentestGPT has the larger community by that measure.
Are PentestGPT and fsociety free?
Both are open source. PentestGPT is licensed under MIT and fsociety under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PentestGPT and fsociety?
PentestGPT is written in Python and fsociety 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, PentestGPT or fsociety?
Choose PentestGPT if you want the larger community (15,931 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose fsociety if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.