head to head · open source
ProjectDiscovery vs PentestGPT
ProjectDiscovery has 31,294 GitHub stars, 3,877 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PentestGPT has 15,521 stars, 2,700 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. ProjectDiscovery leads on adoption by 102% (31,294 vs 15,521 stars). ProjectDiscovery is written in Go under MIT; PentestGPT is written in Python under MIT. ProjectDiscovery has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, PentestGPT 17%. 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 | PentestGPT | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 16K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| 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 PentestGPT if
- You want the PentestGPT feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and PentestGPT 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 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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ProjectDiscovery or PentestGPT more popular?
ProjectDiscovery has 31,294 GitHub stars and PentestGPT has 15,521. ProjectDiscovery has the larger community by that measure.
Are ProjectDiscovery and PentestGPT free?
Both are open source. ProjectDiscovery is licensed under MIT and PentestGPT under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ProjectDiscovery and PentestGPT?
ProjectDiscovery is written in Go and PentestGPT 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, ProjectDiscovery or PentestGPT?
Choose ProjectDiscovery if you want the larger community (31,294 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose PentestGPT if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.