Boomerang Decompiler vs chkrootkit: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Boomerang Decompiler is a free malware analysis tool. chkrootkit is a free malware analysis tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best malware analysis fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Reverse engineers and threat analysts doing malware triage or legacy binary assessment will find Boomerang Decompiler's free, cross-architecture approach valuable when commercial decompilers are overkill; the 400 GitHub stars and active maintenance signal it's genuinely used in the field, not abandoned. The open source model means you can audit the decompiler itself and integrate it into automated analysis pipelines without licensing friction. Skip this if you need GUI-first interaction or support for the latest obfuscation techniques; Boomerang excels at straightforward architectural recovery, not defeating intentional anti-analysis.
Linux administrators managing legacy or air-gapped systems need chkrootkit because it runs entirely offline and requires no agent installation, making it the only viable rootkit detection option when your infrastructure can't phone home. The tool performs over 100 signature-based checks for known rootkit artifacts and kernel-level compromises, catching what file integrity monitoring alone will miss. Skip this if you're running modern EDR across your fleet; chkrootkit prioritizes detection over response and won't integrate with your SOC workflows, making it a one-off forensic tool rather than a continuous monitoring layer.
