jwtear vs ysoserial: 2026 Comparison
jwtear is a free penetration testing tool. ysoserial is a free penetration testing tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best penetration testing fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Penetration testers and AppSec engineers who need to quickly decode, validate, and forge JWT tokens during assessments will find jwtear indispensable; it's a command-line native that handles the manipulation workflows that web UI tools slow down. The 106 GitHub stars reflect active maintenance and real adoption by practitioners who live in terminals, not dashboards. Skip this if your team needs a GUI or a tool that also handles OAuth flows and other token types; jwtear is deliberately JWT-focused and lightweight.
Penetration testers and red teamers validating Java deserialization vulnerabilities need ysoserial for its breadth of gadget chains; with 8,501 GitHub stars and active community contributions, it remains the de facto standard for generating CVE-2015-6420 and related payloads across legacy and modern Java frameworks. The tool's strength lies in its ability to craft working exploits against unsafe ObjectInputStream implementations without requiring live target interaction during payload generation. Skip this if your scope is limited to .NET or Python applications, or if you need a guided UI; ysoserial is command-line native and demands familiarity with Java serialization mechanics.
