Fortra Cobalt Strike vs Shadow Workers: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Fortra Cobalt Strike: Threat emulation tool for adversary simulations and red team operations. built by Fortra. Core capabilities include Post-exploitation payload (Beacon) with PowerShell execution, keylogging, screenshots, and file downloads, Malleable Command and Control (C2) language for network indicator customization, Browser pivoting for hijacking authenticated web sessions..

Shadow Workers: Shadow Workers is an open source C2 framework and proxy tool for penetration testers to exploit XSS vulnerabilities and malicious Service Workers..

Both serve the Red-Team & Adversary Emulation market but differ in approach, feature depth, and target audience.

Fortra Cobalt Strike is developed by Fortra. Shadow Workers is open-source with 236 GitHub stars. Vendor maturity, funding stage, and team size can be important factors when evaluating long-term viability and support quality.

Fortra Cobalt Strike and Shadow Workers serve similar Red-Team & Adversary Emulation use cases: both are Red-Team & Adversary Emulation tools, both cover C2. Key differences: Fortra Cobalt Strike is Commercial while Shadow Workers is Free, Shadow Workers is open-source. Review the feature comparison above to determine which fits your requirements.