head to head · open source
shannon vs Dark-Moon
shannon has 48,276 GitHub stars, 5,534 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Dark-Moon has 957 stars, 159 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shannon leads on adoption by 4,945% (48,276 vs 957 stars). shannon is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Dark-Moon is written in Python under GPL-3.0. shannon has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Dark-Moon 17%. shannon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai-penetration-testing, 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 | Dark-Moon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 957 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 159 |
| 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 Dark-Moon if
- You want the Dark-Moon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Dark-Moon 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 Dark-Moon
DarkMoon is a self hosted, GPL 3.0 autonomous AI penetration testing platform for security teams, red teams and AI security engineers who point it at infrastructure they are authorised to test and let a local or cloud model run the whole assessment unattended, returning a working exploit as proof for every finding.
read the full Dark-Moon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shannon or Dark-Moon more popular?
shannon has 48,276 GitHub stars and Dark-Moon has 957. shannon has the larger community by that measure.
Are shannon and Dark-Moon free?
Both are open source. shannon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Dark-Moon under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shannon and Dark-Moon?
shannon is written in TypeScript and Dark-Moon 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 Dark-Moon?
Choose shannon if you want the larger community (48,276 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Dark-Moon if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.