head to head · open source
shannon vs NeuroSploit
shannon has 49,197 GitHub stars, 5,632 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. NeuroSploit has 1,477 stars, 351 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. shannon leads on adoption by 3,231% (49,197 vs 1,477 stars). shannon is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; NeuroSploit is written in Rust under MIT. shannon has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, NeuroSploit 24%. NeuroSploit was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (ai-penetration-testing, ai-security, cybersecurity, ethical-hacking), 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 | NeuroSploit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.6K | ⑂ 351 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick shannon if
- You weight community size — 49K 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 NeuroSploit if
- You want the NeuroSploit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and NeuroSploit fits your workflow better
About shannon
[!NOTE] Shannon 3.0 is live: deeper security code analysis, more thoroughly vetted findings, a rebuilt CLI, native CI/CD, professional PDF reports, and SARIF. Shannon is an autonomous, AI pentester for web applications and APIs. It analyzes your source code, identifies attack paths, and executes real exploits to prove vulnerabilities before they reach production. No exploit, no report. This repository is Shannon Open Source: the full agent, run locally from your command line. Launch Shannon The interactive launcher will guide you through setup and your first pentest. [!TIP] AI agents and LLMs: start with…
read the full shannon overview →
About NeuroSploit
🧠 NeuroSploit v4.4.0 Autonomous, multi model penetration testing harness — Rust, CLI first. by Joas A Santos & Red Team Leaders What is NeuroSploit? NeuroSploit is an autonomous penetration testing tool. You point it at a target; it does the security assessment on its own and hands you a report — recon, exploitation, chaining findings into real impact, and validation, with no human driving each step. The key idea: the harness is the pentester, not the model. Instead of asking one LLM to "hack this", a Rust engine runs the methodology — it picks the right specialist agents for what it finds, runs them in…
read the full NeuroSploit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shannon or NeuroSploit more popular?
shannon has 49,197 GitHub stars and NeuroSploit has 1,477. shannon has the larger community by that measure.
Are shannon and NeuroSploit free?
Both are open source. shannon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and NeuroSploit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shannon and NeuroSploit?
shannon is written in TypeScript and NeuroSploit 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, shannon or NeuroSploit?
Choose shannon if you want the larger community (49,197 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose NeuroSploit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.