head to head · open source
thc-hydra vs pacu
thc-hydra has 12,507 GitHub stars, 2,714 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. pacu has 5,398 stars, 801 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. thc-hydra leads on adoption by 132% (12,507 vs 5,398 stars). thc-hydra is written in C under AGPL-3.0; pacu is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. thc-hydra has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, pacu 15%. thc-hydra was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| thc-hydra | pacu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | C | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-08 | 2026-05-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 801 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick thc-hydra if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pacu if
- You want the pacu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pacu fits your workflow better
About thc-hydra
H Y D R A (c) 2001 2023 by van Hauser / THC Many modules were written by David (dot) Maciejak @ gmail (dot) com BFG code by Jan Dlabal Licensed under AGPLv3 (see LICENSE file) Please do not use in military or secret service organizations, or for illegal purposes. (This is the wish of the author and non binding. Many people working in these organizations do not care for laws and ethics anyway. You are not one of the "good" ones if you ignore this.) NOTE: No, this is not meant to be a markdown doc! old school! Hydra in the most current GitHub state can be directly downloaded via Docker: INTRODUCTION Number one of…
read the full thc-hydra overview →
About pacu
Quick reference Where to get help : the Rhino Security Labs Discord, or Stack Overflow Where to file issues : Maintained by : Rhino Security Labs What is Pacu? Pacu is an open source AWS exploitation framework, designed for offensive security testing against cloud environments. Created and maintained by Rhino Security Labs, Pacu allows penetration testers to exploit configuration flaws within an AWS account, using modules to easily expand its functionality. Current modules enable a range of attacks, including user privilege escalation, backdooring of IAM users, attacking vulnerable Lambda functions, and much…
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Frequently asked questions
Is thc-hydra or pacu more popular?
thc-hydra has 12,507 GitHub stars and pacu has 5,398. thc-hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are thc-hydra and pacu free?
Both are open source. thc-hydra is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pacu under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between thc-hydra and pacu?
thc-hydra is written in C and pacu 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, thc-hydra or pacu?
Choose thc-hydra if you want the larger community (12,507 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pacu if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.