Awesome Security
A curated, community-maintained list of security tools, books, and resources, organized by topic.
- Stars
- 15.1k
- Forks
- 2.5k
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- —
- Last update
- 10 months ago
- Type
- Curated list
What it is
Awesome Security is a categorized list of links to security software, libraries, books, and reference material. It is organized into sections such as network scanning, endpoint protection, web security, threat intelligence, and forensics. People use it as a starting point to discover tools for a specific security task instead of searching from scratch.
- Browse the Network section to find scanners such as Nmap or OpenVAS
- Find web security tools under the Web section
- Look up forensic and DFIR distributions listed under Endpoint and Operating Systems
- Discover security books and ebooks in the EBooks section
Great for
- Security learners looking for well-known tools in a given area
- Penetration testers browsing scanning and recon tools
- Security engineers comparing options within a category
- Anyone wanting a broad overview of the security tooling landscape
Not ideal for
- People who need a ready-to-run tool: this is a list of links, not software itself
- Readers wanting vetted security advice, since entries are community-submitted and the README does not describe a review process
- People needing current information on each tool, since the list may contain outdated links
How to get it
- 1
Read it online
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/sbilly/awesome-security - 2
Run it
- Open the README on GitHub in your browser
- Use the table of contents to jump to a category that matches your need
- Follow a tool link and read its own documentation before installing anything
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Use the table of contents links to jump directly to a section
- Check each linked project's license and last update before relying on it
- Explore the Other Awesome Lists section for more specialized collections
Downloads
Strengths
- Broad coverage across many security subfields in one place
- Organized into clear categories with short descriptions
- Widely starred and under the MIT license
Trade-offs
- Entries are links with brief descriptions, so you must visit each project to evaluate it
- Community-maintained, so quality and link freshness can vary
- Truncated README in this analysis means not all sections were reviewed
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| awesome-security (this) | 15.1k | Curated list | beginner | 10 months ago | Security learners looking for well-known tools in a given area |
| awesome-hacker-search-engines | 11.5k | Curated list | beginner | 4 days ago | Security professionals starting a penetration test or vulnerability assessment who need a place to look up data |
| PayloadsAllTheThings | 82.3k | Curated list | beginner | 6 days ago | Penetration testers who want a quick reference of payload variations for a known vulnerability class |
| mitmproxy | 46.6k | Dev tool | intermediate | 4 days ago | Developers debugging how an app talks to a backend API |
| web-check | 35.3k | App | intermediate | 4 days ago | Developers checking how a site is configured |
| gitleaks | 30.6k | CLI | beginner | 9 days ago | Developers who want to catch accidentally committed credentials before they reach a shared repository |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.