head to head · open source
ProjectDiscovery vs cwe_checker
ProjectDiscovery has 31,445 GitHub stars, 3,884 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cwe_checker has 1,360 stars, 143 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. ProjectDiscovery leads on adoption by 2,212% (31,445 vs 1,360 stars). ProjectDiscovery is written in Go under MIT; cwe_checker is written in Rust under LGPL-3.0. ProjectDiscovery has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, cwe_checker 11%. ProjectDiscovery was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (security, security-scanner, vulnerability-scanner), 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
| ProjectDiscovery | cwe_checker | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-08-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 143 |
| 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 cwe_checker if
- You want the cwe_checker feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and cwe_checker 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 cwe_checker
cwe checker is a suite of static analysis checks that scans ELF binaries for common bug classes — formally known as Common Weakness Enumerations (CWEs), such as null pointer dereferences and buffer overflows — and it is aimed at security analysts, reverse engineers, and firmware analysts who need to find potentially vulnerable code paths in compiled executables.
read the full cwe_checker overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ProjectDiscovery or cwe_checker more popular?
ProjectDiscovery has 31,445 GitHub stars and cwe_checker has 1,360. ProjectDiscovery has the larger community by that measure.
Are ProjectDiscovery and cwe_checker free?
Both are open source. ProjectDiscovery is licensed under MIT and cwe_checker under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ProjectDiscovery and cwe_checker?
ProjectDiscovery is written in Go and cwe_checker in Rust. 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 cwe_checker?
Choose ProjectDiscovery if you want the larger community (31,445 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cwe_checker if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.