Donut vs mach_inject: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Donut

Red teamers and penetration testers who need to deliver .NET and PE payloads that evade memory-scanning EDR will find Donut essential; it generates position-independent shellcode that executes directly from memory without touching disk, eliminating the most common detection vector. With 4,492 GitHub stars and active community contributions, the tool has been battle-tested across real engagements and stays current with Windows API changes. Skip this if you're looking for post-exploitation frameworks with built-in C2 capability or if your scope is limited to external reconnaissance; Donut is narrowly focused on the injection problem and assumes you already have payload delivery sorted.

mach_inject

macOS red teamers and security researchers validating endpoint defenses will get the most from mach_inject because it's the lightest-weight code injection primitive for testing whether macOS processes properly restrict cross-process memory writes. The 831 GitHub stars and active fork ecosystem reflect sustained use in adversary emulation workflows where you need injectable payloads without the overhead of framework dependencies. Skip this if you're building detection logic for Windows or Linux environments, or if your testing requires graphical interaction simulation; mach_inject is purely injection-focused and won't help you there.