Open-source alternatives to Learn Web Hacking

fuzzdb is a collection of datasets designed for web application penetration testing and dynamic fuzzing. It provides a fuzzing payload dictionary, a resource discovery wordlist, and a fault injection dataset containing corrupted Unicode, null bytes, and escape codes to trigger application crashes and logic errors. The project includes a security filter bypass list featuring polyglots and encoded strings to evade web application firewalls and input validation filters. It also provides a comprehensive web application penetration testing dataset specifically for identifying flaws such as cross-s

bknd is a self-hosted backend-as-a-service platform and serverless backend framework that provides an integrated environment for managing databases, authentication, and file storage. It functions as a headless CMS and a portable API engine designed to run across various JavaScript runtimes, including Node.js, Bun, Cloudflare Workers, and AWS Lambda. The project distinguishes itself through a combination of schema-driven API generation and a built-in database management UI. It enables the definition of data structures either programmatically via a type-safe API or visually through an administr

Nettacker is an automated penetration testing framework designed to orchestrate reconnaissance, port scanning, and vulnerability detection. It functions as a network reconnaissance tool and vulnerability scanner that identifies open ports, fingerprints services, and checks systems against databases of known security flaws. The framework distinguishes itself by combining a web application crawler for discovering hidden paths via fuzzing with a vulnerability management system that persists scan results in a database to track historical assessments. It also includes specialized capabilities for

The Web Application Security Testing Guide is an open-source security testing standard and comprehensive framework of procedures for identifying vulnerabilities in web applications and services. It serves as a vulnerability assessment methodology and a web API security audit framework, providing a structured approach for conducting consistent and thorough security audits of web-based software. The project utilizes a methodology-based audit framework and checklist-driven workflows to ensure repeatable discovery and exploitation steps. It organizes security tests through taxonomy-based vulnerab

HowToHunt is a bug bounty hunting knowledge base and a structured guide for web application penetration testing. It provides a research methodology for organizing security testing procedures and validating application behaviors against known vulnerability patterns. The project features a curated library of security flaws and reconnaissance techniques. It organizes security testing into modular playbooks, checklists, and categorical vulnerability mappings to align specific exploitation techniques with target weaknesses. The repository covers a systematic sequence of information gathering task

Micro8 is a security auditing knowledge base and penetration testing resource library. It serves as a curated collection of guides and documentation focused on vulnerability assessment. The project provides educational content and study guides for manual source code review, domain escalation, and internal network auditing. It includes a toolkit of reference materials for analyzing network traffic logs and identifying brute-force patterns. The library covers technical domains including web penetration testing and privilege escalation. It organizes these materials through PDF-based knowledge r

This project is a comprehensive, community-sourced knowledge base designed for security professionals and researchers. It functions as a centralized repository of offensive security techniques, providing a structured collection of exploit payloads, attack vectors, and methodologies for conducting vulnerability assessments and penetration testing. The repository distinguishes itself through a cross-platform payload taxonomy that categorizes exploitation methods by vulnerability type and target environment, enabling rapid lookup during security assessments. It maintains high standards of data i

Maskphish is a comprehensive security toolkit that integrates capabilities for digital forensics, network vulnerability scanning, open-source intelligence, penetration testing, and social engineering. It functions as a multi-purpose framework for automating reconnaissance and executing security audits across diverse network environments. The project features a specialized phishing and social engineering toolkit used for cloning websites, masking URLs, and deploying deceptive pages to capture user credentials. It also includes a remote access Trojan builder for generating platform-specific exe

Sn1per is a vulnerability management platform and penetration testing orchestrator designed to automate reconnaissance, vulnerability scanning, and exploit verification. It functions as a dockerized security toolkit that coordinates multiple tools into a unified automated pipeline to identify security flaws across network and web assets. The platform features an attack surface manager for discovering internet-facing assets through OSINT, DNS enumeration, and certificate transparency. It distinguishes itself with an AI-powered security analyzer that uses large language models to summarize scan

This project is a vulnerability intelligence database and aggregator that organizes common vulnerabilities and exposures alongside their corresponding proof-of-concept exploit code. It functions as a security vulnerability tracker and an indexed directory of public exploit payloads. The system monitors new security flaws and updates to known exploits through repository watches and atom feeds. It utilizes automated aggregation to collect vulnerability details from centralized repositories and discovers associated exploit code via reference analysis and global searches. The tool provides capab

This project is a web application security standard and vulnerability framework. It provides a comprehensive list of the most critical security risks facing web applications, paired with technical guidance and a structured methodology for identifying and mitigating these flaws. The framework functions as a secure coding guide and a risk assessment methodology, offering a standardized approach to prioritizing vulnerabilities based on their potential impact and likelihood of exploitation. It defines architectural patterns and technical recommendations to help developers implement defense in dep

Agent-skills is a collection of structured instructions and behavioral personas designed to standardize how AI coding agents perform engineering tasks. It functions as a workflow orchestrator that maps natural language intent to repeatable technical sequences and verification checklists. The project distinguishes itself through the use of specialized markdown-defined roles, such as security auditors or test engineers, to apply targeted domain expertise. It employs an evidence-based verification model that requires runtime data or passing tests as mandatory exit criteria to ensure AI-generated

This project is a backend engineering interview guide and computer science study resource. It provides a curated collection of technical questions and answers focused on server-side architecture, database optimization, and networking fundamentals to prepare for professional software engineering evaluations. The resource functions as a technical reference for studying ACID properties, transaction isolation, and the optimization of relational and non-relational systems. It includes a software architecture reference for analyzing design patterns, dependency injection, and the structural tradeoff

Lockdoor-Framework is a modular penetration testing suite designed to facilitate comprehensive security assessments through a centralized command-line interface. It functions as an integrated platform for reconnaissance, vulnerability scanning, and the exploitation of target systems, providing a unified environment for managing complex security workflows. The framework distinguishes itself through a modular plugin architecture that allows for the extension of core capabilities without modifying the underlying codebase. It incorporates an automated reconnaissance pipeline to map attack surface

This project is a comprehensive, community-curated directory of cybersecurity resources, tools, and educational materials. It functions as a centralized index for researchers and students to discover frameworks and utilities across the entire security lifecycle, ranging from initial vulnerability assessment to post-exploitation analysis. The repository distinguishes itself through a hierarchical taxonomy that organizes diverse security disciplines into a searchable, version-controlled knowledge base. Rather than hosting software directly, it utilizes a decentralized aggregation model that lin

HackTricks is a comprehensive cybersecurity knowledge base and wiki designed to support ethical hacking, penetration testing, and infrastructure security auditing. It serves as a structured reference guide for security professionals, providing detailed documentation on common vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and remediation strategies across diverse software and network environments. The project distinguishes itself by offering actionable methodologies for identifying and analyzing security flaws. It functions as a centralized repository for security research, enabling practitioners to study

AntSword is a cross-platform web manager and penetration testing framework designed for the centralized administration of multiple remote website environments. It functions as a remote website administration tool and a web shell management tool, allowing users to organize and control diverse web servers from a single interface. The project provides a toolkit for security researchers to perform authorized security audits and identify vulnerabilities. It supports web penetration testing and security research workflows to analyze web application behavior and discover potential exploits. The sys

Pacu is an exploitation framework designed for auditing and testing the security of Amazon Web Services environments. It serves as a cloud penetration testing tool and resource enumerator used to identify misconfigurations, map attack surfaces, and execute privilege escalation paths. The framework provides specialized capabilities for post-exploitation and red team operations, including establishing persistence through identity and access management backdooring. It distinguishes itself with a plugin-based module system that allows for the development of custom tasks and the orchestration of A

Go-SCP is a secure coding guide and vulnerability prevention framework for the Go programming language. It serves as a technical manual for implementing defensive programming patterns and security benchmarks to prevent common software vulnerabilities. The project functions as a static security reference, mapping known software weaknesses to specific Go remediation patterns. It provides a curated repository of secure coding standards and vetted implementation practices specifically focused on web application security. The framework covers security auditing by comparing source code against est

This project is a bug bounty target dataset and security asset list. It serves as a structured repository of reachable network assets, domains, and applications eligible for security testing across multiple vulnerability disclosure programs. The dataset is designed to support bug bounty reconnaissance, attack surface mapping, and security target analysis. It provides organized scopes and target lists to help identify valid assets for security testing and vulnerability research workflows. The repository utilizes automated scraping pipelines and platform API integration to synchronize data. It

recon-ng is an open source intelligence reconnaissance framework designed to automate the collection and aggregation of public information. It is a modular intelligence tool that utilizes a system of pluggable modules to harvest target data, resolve DNS queries, and parse web content. The framework is built as an API-driven tool with a programmatic interface to integrate with other security workflows. It is provided as a containerized application, using Docker to ensure a consistent environment for running reconnaissance tasks and managing a persistent data store. Its capabilities cover exte

Blasting Dictionary provides curated datasets of common usernames and passwords designed for auditing authentication strength and identifying vulnerable accounts. It serves as a collection of credential stuffing wordlists and password attack dictionaries used to test for weak or default credentials in target services. The project facilitates security penetration testing and vulnerability assessments by providing the necessary datasets for simulating brute force and credential stuffing attacks. These resources are used to evaluate the security of authentication systems and identify services su

Cloudsploit is a cloud security posture management tool and multi-cloud security auditor. It audits cloud infrastructure for misconfigurations and compliance risks across multiple providers, specifically AWS and Azure, by evaluating resource configurations against a set of security plugins. The project functions as a cloud compliance scanner that maps infrastructure scan results to regulatory frameworks and security policy standards. It also serves as an automated cloud remediation tool, executing corrective actions to fix detected misconfigurations via SDK calls. The system covers resource

Mindmap is a cybersecurity knowledge base and reference library that organizes security tools, frameworks, and methodologies into a visual knowledge map. It functions as a curated directory of cheat sheets and command guides for offensive and defensive security operations, presented as a hierarchical interface with collapsible nodes. The project converts structured markdown files into navigable visual trees to facilitate the study of penetration testing workflows and DevOps learning roadmaps. It also serves as a security compliance framework, providing structured mappings of NIST and ISO 2700

EyeWitness is a web infrastructure mapper and reconnaissance tool designed to automate the visual mapping of exposed web services. It functions as a headless browser screenshotter and HTTP reconnaissance utility that captures visual evidence and extracts server headers from lists of web targets. The system identifies server technologies and audits for common default administrative credentials to map an organization's external attack surface. It generates searchable HTML security reports that combine screenshots, page source code, and categorized analysis results for vulnerability assessment.

This project is a comprehensive set of guides and frameworks designed to secure software-as-a-service infrastructure and company operations. It provides a collection of technical checklists, architectural patterns, and best practices for hardening cloud applications against cyber attacks. The project differentiates itself by providing specialized manuals for risk management and compliance readiness. It offers structured approaches to threat modeling, incident response planning, and the preparation of audit evidence required to meet industry security certifications and enterprise customer requ

Findomain is a subdomain discovery tool and DNS resolver used for mapping an organization's external attack surface. It functions as a DNS infrastructure analyzer that searches for registered subdomains associated with a root domain to uncover undocumented infrastructure and services. The project includes an attack surface monitor that tracks changes to subdomains over time, using differential state monitoring to identify newly created or deleted assets. It provides real-time alerting via webhooks when changes in the monitored domain surface are detected. The system performs high-speed DNS r