head to head · open source
shannon vs xalgorix
shannon has 48,105 GitHub stars, 5,515 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. xalgorix has 1,103 stars, 194 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. shannon leads on adoption by 4,261% (48,105 vs 1,103 stars). shannon is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; xalgorix is written in Go under Apache-2.0. shannon has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, xalgorix 18%. xalgorix was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (ai-security, cybersecurity, ethical-hacking, 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 | xalgorix | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-08 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 194 |
| 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 xalgorix if
- You want the xalgorix feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and xalgorix 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 xalgorix
Xalgorix is an open source, self hosted autonomous AI penetration testing platform for security teams, pentesters, and bug bounty hunters who want every reported finding independently re exploited as proof instead of triaged as a maybe.
read the full xalgorix overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shannon or xalgorix more popular?
shannon has 48,105 GitHub stars and xalgorix has 1,103. shannon has the larger community by that measure.
Are shannon and xalgorix free?
Both are open source. shannon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and xalgorix under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shannon and xalgorix?
shannon is written in TypeScript and xalgorix in Go. 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 xalgorix?
Choose shannon if you want the larger community (48,105 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose xalgorix if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.