head to head · open source
ProjectDiscovery vs crowdsec
ProjectDiscovery has 31,496 GitHub stars, 3,892 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped yesterday. crowdsec has 14,956 stars, 719 forks, 296 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ProjectDiscovery leads on adoption by 111% (31,496 vs 14,956 stars). ProjectDiscovery is written in Go under MIT; crowdsec is written in Go under MIT. ProjectDiscovery has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, crowdsec 5%. ProjectDiscovery was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| ProjectDiscovery | crowdsec | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 719 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ProjectDiscovery if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick crowdsec if
- You want the crowdsec feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and crowdsec fits your workflow better
About ProjectDiscovery
Nuclei is a high performance, open source vulnerability scanner built by ProjectDiscovery, part of the ProjectDiscovery ecosystem. It operates as a CLI tool using a simple YAML based DSL to define custom vulnerability checks, enabling precise, real world exploitation simulation to eliminate false positives.
read the full ProjectDiscovery overview →
About crowdsec
CrowdSec is an open source, MIT licensed intrusion detection and prevention system, WAF and bot detection engine that analyses logs and HTTP requests and blocks malicious IPs at the firewall, reverse proxy or CDN, built for Linux, Windows, Docker and Kubernetes operators who want community sourced threat intelligence sitting behind their own infrastructure.
read the full crowdsec overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ProjectDiscovery or crowdsec more popular?
ProjectDiscovery has 31,496 GitHub stars and crowdsec has 14,956. ProjectDiscovery has the larger community by that measure.
Are ProjectDiscovery and crowdsec free?
Both are open source. ProjectDiscovery is licensed under MIT and crowdsec under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ProjectDiscovery and crowdsec?
ProjectDiscovery is written in Go and crowdsec in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ProjectDiscovery or crowdsec?
Choose ProjectDiscovery if you want the larger community (31,496 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose crowdsec if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.