head to head · open source
rengine vs reconftw
rengine has 8,856 GitHub stars, 1,344 forks, 164 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. reconftw has 8,138 stars, 1,235 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rengine leads on adoption by 9% (8,856 vs 8,138 stars). rengine is written in HTML under GPL-3.0; reconftw is written in Shell under MIT. rengine has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, reconftw 15%. reconftw was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 7 topic tags (bug-bounty, bugbounty, hacking, osint), 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
| rengine | reconftw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | HTML | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rengine if
- You weight community size — 8.9K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- 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 rengine
reNgine is an open source automated reconnaissance framework for web applications, built for penetration testers, bug bounty hunters and corporate security teams who need a configurable, repeatable recon process with the results correlated and stored in one place.
read the full rengine 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 rengine or reconftw more popular?
rengine has 8,856 GitHub stars and reconftw has 8,138. rengine has the larger community by that measure.
Are rengine and reconftw free?
Both are open source. rengine is licensed under GPL-3.0 and reconftw under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rengine and reconftw?
rengine is written in HTML 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, rengine or reconftw?
Choose rengine if you want the larger community (8,856 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose reconftw if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.