Fortra Cobalt Strike is a commercial red-team & adversary emulation solution by Fortra. Shadow Workers is a free red-team & adversary emulation solution. Features, integrations, deployment and the company behind each one, side by side.
Threat emulation product for adversary simulations and red team operations
Shadow Workers is an open source C2 framework and proxy tool for penetration testers to exploit XSS vulnerabilities and malicious Service Workers.
See more solutions in this category, or build a security stack from your picks.
Based on what each listing shows: deployment, company size, price and open source.
Shadow Workers fits if you need a free product and you want an open-source product.
Common questions when comparing Fortra Cobalt Strike vs Shadow Workers for red-team & adversary emulation.
Fortra Cobalt Strike: Threat emulation product 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.
The table above shows where their features, integrations, deployment and company size fit differ.
Fortra Cobalt Strike is made by Fortra. Shadow Workers is open-source with 236 GitHub stars. The vendor behind a product decides its roadmap, support, and longevity, so check each company's profile before you commit.
Often, yes. Fortra Cobalt Strike and Shadow Workers are both Red-Team & Adversary Emulation products, and both cover C2. Key differences: Fortra Cobalt Strike is Commercial while Shadow Workers is Free, Shadow Workers is open-source. Use the table above to see where features, deployment and company size fit differ.
