head to head · open source
thc-hydra vs tenzir
thc-hydra has 12,349 GitHub stars, 2,679 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. tenzir has 762 stars, 110 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped today. thc-hydra leads on adoption by 1,521% (12,349 vs 762 stars). thc-hydra is written in C under AGPL-3.0; tenzir is written in C++ under BSD-3-Clause. thc-hydra has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, tenzir 14%. tenzir was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | tenzir | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 762 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | C | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-07-30 | 2026-10-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 110 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick thc-hydra if
- You weight community size — 12K 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 tenzir if
- You want the tenzir feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and tenzir fits your workflow better
About thc-hydra
Hydra is an AGPL 3.0 licensed, C based login cracker that attacks dozens of network protocols in parallel, built for security researchers and penetration testing consultants who need to demonstrate how easily a remote system can be reached with weak credentials.
read the full thc-hydra overview →
About tenzir
Tenzir is a data pipeline engine for security teams — written in C++ and released under the BSD 3 Clause licence — that lets SOC analysts, detection engineers, and incident responders collect, transform, enrich, and route security telemetry instead of only storing it.
read the full tenzir overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is thc-hydra or tenzir more popular?
thc-hydra has 12,349 GitHub stars and tenzir has 762. thc-hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are thc-hydra and tenzir free?
Both are open source. thc-hydra is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and tenzir under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between thc-hydra and tenzir?
thc-hydra is written in C and tenzir in C++. 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 tenzir?
Choose thc-hydra if you want the larger community (12,349 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose tenzir if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.