brutesubs vs assetfinder: 2026 Comparison
brutesubs is a free external attack surface management tool. assetfinder is a free external attack surface management tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best external attack surface management fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Security teams with limited budgets who need to map subdomain inventory across multiple internal projects will appreciate brutesubs for its parallelized approach; running five bruteforcing tools simultaneously through Docker Compose cuts discovery time versus serial execution, and the free model eliminates licensing friction for teams already resource-constrained. The 258 GitHub stars and active community wordlists mean you're getting battle-tested configurations rather than a one-off script. Skip this if you need passive DNS integration or a managed dashboard; brutesubs is a CLI orchestrator that assumes you're comfortable containerizing and running jobs on your own infrastructure.
Reconnaissance teams and pentesters who need fast domain enumeration during scoping phases should use assetfinder; it discovers subdomains through multiple passive sources without needing API keys or authentication, which beats tools that require paid integrations just to start mapping. The 3,393 GitHub stars and active maintenance reflect real adoption in the offensive security community where speed and simplicity matter more than UI polish. Skip this if your team expects a graphical interface or wants asset discovery bundled with vulnerability scanning and reporting; assetfinder is deliberately command-line only, built for operators who already know what they're hunting.
