Darkarmour vs DiskShadow: 2026 Comparison
Darkarmour is a free offensive security tool. DiskShadow is a free offensive security tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best offensive security fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Red team operators and security researchers validating defensive controls need Darkarmour because it's free, actively maintained, and lets you rapidly iterate obfuscation payloads without licensing friction. With 837 GitHub stars and active commits, it has real adoption among practitioners who need to test whether their AV actually detects what vendors claim. Skip this if you're building detection rules for a SOC; Darkarmour is offensive tradecraft, not a detection platform, and will frustrate teams expecting telemetry or an alert interface.
Red team operators and penetration testers need DiskShadow because it's the only free tool that lets you weaponize VSS for both persistence and anti-forensics without touching commercial frameworks. The tool maps directly to NIST Respond functions by letting you test whether your detection stack catches VSS manipulation before an attacker actually uses it; most teams discover they can't. Skip this if your threat model assumes attackers won't touch Windows shadow copies, or if you're a blue team looking for detection content rather than offensive validation.
