Pwndbg vs PEDA: 2026 Comparison
Pwndbg is a free penetration testing tool. PEDA 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:
Reverse engineers and exploit developers who spend hours stepping through stripped binaries will move faster with Pwndbg than vanilla GDB; its contextual heap inspection and ROP gadget search eliminate repetitive manual work. The project's 9,244 GitHub stars and active maintenance reflect real adoption among security researchers who've made it part of their standard toolkit. Skip this if your team needs a GUI debugger or support for Windows-native binaries; Pwndbg is Linux-first and command-line only.
Penetration testers and security researchers doing manual exploit development on Linux will find PEDA indispensable for speeding up low-level binary analysis; the 6,111 GitHub stars reflect years of active use in red teams who've standardized on GDB workflows. The tool's colorized output and exploit-specific commands cut analysis time significantly compared to raw GDB, particularly for stack overflow and format string research. Skip PEDA if your team relies primarily on Windows binaries or needs a graphical debugger; it's a command-line power tool for practitioners who already speak GDB fluently.
