PowerUp vs BloodHound: 2026 Comparison
PowerUp is a free penetration testing tool. BloodHound 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 running Windows infrastructure assessments need PowerUp for its methodical enumeration of privilege escalation paths that exploits actually abuse; its 12,911 GitHub stars reflect adoption by operators who've validated it against real misconfigurations. The tool excels at the Identify function, systematically exposing Windows permission gaps and service exploits that other scanners miss or flag generically. Skip PowerUp if your team lacks Windows privilege escalation expertise or expects a GUI; it's a PowerShell script for operators, not a point-and-click platform.
Penetration testers and red teamers need BloodHound to map Active Directory attack paths that manual testing misses; the graph visualization finds transitive trust relationships and permission chains that would take weeks to discover by hand. The tool is free and has 10,325 GitHub stars, meaning you're inheriting battle-tested logic from thousands of real assessments. Skip BloodHound if your team lacks AD expertise to interpret the output or if you need automated exploitation; it's a discovery and visualization engine, not a post-exploitation framework.
