head to head · open source
shannon vs vuln-bank
shannon has 50,964 GitHub stars, 5,926 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. vuln-bank has 992 stars, 371 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. shannon leads on adoption by 5,038% (50,964 vs 992 stars). shannon is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; vuln-bank is written in HTML under MIT. shannon has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, vuln-bank 37%. shannon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-security, devsecops, penetration-testing), 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 | vuln-bank | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 51K | ★ 992 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-10-27 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.9K | ⑂ 371 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick shannon if
- You weight community size — 51K 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 vuln-bank if
- You want the vuln-bank feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and vuln-bank 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 vuln-bank
Vulnerable Bank Application 🏦 A deliberately vulnerable web application for practicing application security testing of Web, APIs and LLMs, secure code review and implementing security in CI/CD pipelines. ⚠️ WARNING: This application is intentionally vulnerable and should only be used for educational purposes in isolated environments. Overview This project is a simple banking application with multiple security vulnerabilities built in. It's designed to help security engineers, developers, interns, QA analyst and DevSecOps practitioners learn about: Common web application and API vulnerabilities AI/LLM…
read the full vuln-bank overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shannon or vuln-bank more popular?
shannon has 50,964 GitHub stars and vuln-bank has 992. shannon has the larger community by that measure.
Are shannon and vuln-bank free?
Both are open source. shannon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and vuln-bank under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shannon and vuln-bank?
shannon is written in TypeScript and vuln-bank in HTML. 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 vuln-bank?
Choose shannon if you want the larger community (50,964 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose vuln-bank if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.