head to head · open source
ProjectDiscovery vs reconftw
ProjectDiscovery has 31,445 GitHub stars, 3,884 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reconftw has 8,138 stars, 1,235 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ProjectDiscovery leads on adoption by 286% (31,445 vs 8,138 stars). ProjectDiscovery is written in Go under MIT; reconftw is written in Shell under MIT. ProjectDiscovery has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, reconftw 15%. 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 | reconftw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 reconftw if
- You want the reconftw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and reconftw 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 reconftw
reconFTW is an automated reconnaissance framework, written in Shell under the MIT licence, that runs a curated chain of security tools against a target domain to enumerate subdomains and hosts, gather OSINT, analyse web surfaces, and check for vulnerabilities; it is built for security researchers, penetration testers, and bug bounty hunters.
read the full reconftw overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ProjectDiscovery or reconftw more popular?
ProjectDiscovery has 31,445 GitHub stars and reconftw has 8,138. ProjectDiscovery has the larger community by that measure.
Are ProjectDiscovery and reconftw free?
Both are open source. ProjectDiscovery is licensed under MIT and reconftw under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ProjectDiscovery and reconftw?
ProjectDiscovery is written in Go and reconftw in Shell. 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 reconftw?
Choose ProjectDiscovery if you want the larger community (31,445 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose reconftw if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.