head to head · open source
strix vs pentest-ai-agents
strix has 63,281 GitHub stars, 6,903 forks, 383 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pentest-ai-agents has 2,239 stars, 428 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. strix leads on adoption by 2,726% (63,281 vs 2,239 stars). strix is written in Python under Apache-2.0; pentest-ai-agents is written in Shell under MIT. strix has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, pentest-ai-agents 19%. strix 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, bug-bounty, 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
| strix | pentest-ai-agents | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 63K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 428 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick strix if
- You weight community size — 63K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pentest-ai-agents if
- You want the pentest-ai-agents feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and pentest-ai-agents fits your workflow better
About strix
Strix is an open source AI penetration testing tool that deploys autonomous AI agents against a running codebase to find, validate, and fix application vulnerabilities, built for developers and security teams who want dynamic security testing without the cost and scheduling overhead of manual pentesting.
read the full strix overview →
About pentest-ai-agents
pentest ai agents: 50 Claude Code subagents for authorized offensive security research. Lives in Claude Code ecosystem. Agents carry domain knowledge for recon, web, Active Directory, cloud, mobile, wireless, social engineering, payload crafting, reverse engineering, exploit chaining, detection engineering, forensics.
read the full pentest-ai-agents overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is strix or pentest-ai-agents more popular?
strix has 63,281 GitHub stars and pentest-ai-agents has 2,239. strix has the larger community by that measure.
Are strix and pentest-ai-agents free?
Both are open source. strix is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pentest-ai-agents under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between strix and pentest-ai-agents?
strix is written in Python and pentest-ai-agents in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, strix or pentest-ai-agents?
Choose strix if you want the larger community (63,281 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pentest-ai-agents if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.