head to head · open source
ProjectDiscovery vs rustinel
ProjectDiscovery has 31,812 GitHub stars, 3,914 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rustinel has 501 stars, 62 forks, 60 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ProjectDiscovery leads on adoption by 6,250% (31,812 vs 501 stars). ProjectDiscovery is written in Go under MIT; rustinel is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. ProjectDiscovery has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, rustinel 12%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| ProjectDiscovery | rustinel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 501 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 62 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ProjectDiscovery if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rustinel if
- You want the rustinel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and rustinel 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 rustinel
Rustinel is an open source endpoint detection agent for Windows, Linux, and macOS that runs Sigma, YARA, and IOC rules against native telemetry locally, with no cloud account required.
read the full rustinel overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Threat Detection & Response projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Threat Detection & Response field.
Frequently asked questions
Is ProjectDiscovery or rustinel more popular?
ProjectDiscovery has 31,812 GitHub stars and rustinel has 501. ProjectDiscovery has the larger community by that measure.
Are ProjectDiscovery and rustinel free?
Both are open source. ProjectDiscovery is licensed under MIT and rustinel under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ProjectDiscovery and rustinel?
ProjectDiscovery is written in Go and rustinel 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 rustinel?
Choose ProjectDiscovery if you want the larger community (31,812 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rustinel if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.