head to head · open source
shannon vs Adrian
shannon has 48,105 GitHub stars, 5,515 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. Adrian has 566 stars, 93 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. shannon leads on adoption by 8,399% (48,105 vs 566 stars). shannon is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Adrian is written in Python under Apache-2.0. shannon has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Adrian 16%. Adrian was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-security), 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
| shannon | Adrian | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 566 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-08 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 93 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick shannon if
- You weight community size — 48K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Adrian if
- You want the Adrian feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Adrian fits your workflow better
About shannon
Shannon is an autonomous AI pentester for web applications and APIs that reads an application's source code, identifies attack paths, and executes real exploits so that only vulnerabilities with a working proof of concept are reported, built for AppSec, DevSecOps, and security engineering teams that ship code continuously.
read the full shannon overview →
About Adrian
Adrian is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed runtime security engine for AI agents that inspects both what an agent does and why it does it, and can block or hold a risky action before it lands — aimed at teams shipping LLM agents on stacks such as LangChain and LangGraph.
read the full Adrian overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shannon or Adrian more popular?
shannon has 48,105 GitHub stars and Adrian has 566. shannon has the larger community by that measure.
Are shannon and Adrian free?
Both are open source. shannon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Adrian under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shannon and Adrian?
shannon is written in TypeScript and Adrian 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, shannon or Adrian?
Choose shannon if you want the larger community (48,105 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Adrian if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.