Features, pricing, ratings, and pros and cons, compared head to head.
Payloads All The Things is a free penetration testing tool. Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET) 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. Independent and vendor-neutral: we never sell rankings.
Based on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Penetration testers and red teamers building custom test cases should use Payloads All The Things as a living reference library; its 76,000 GitHub stars reflect years of community-driven validation across SQLi, XSS, CSRF, and dozens of other vectors. The real value is that it's freely maintained by practitioners who actually exploit these gaps, so payloads stay current with real-world bypasses rather than textbook examples. Skip this if you need a polished UI, guided workflows, or integration with your vulnerability scanner; Payloads All The Things is raw material for people who know what they're hunting for.
Penetration testers running red team engagements on tight budgets should reach for Social-Engineer Toolkit first; it's the fastest way to spin up custom phishing and credential harvesting attacks without writing payloads from scratch. The 12,355 GitHub stars reflect actual adoption among practitioners, and the framework's modularity lets you chain attacks that most commercial tools won't support. Skip this if your team needs post-exploitation stability or operator-friendly logging; SET is a craftsperson's tool that rewards scripting skill and tolerates rough edges.
A comprehensive repository of payloads and bypass techniques for web application security testing and penetration testing across multiple platforms and attack vectors.
An open-source penetration testing framework for social engineering with custom attack vectors.
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Common questions about comparing Payloads All The Things vs Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET) for your penetration testing needs.
Payloads All The Things: A comprehensive repository of payloads and bypass techniques for web application security testing and penetration testing across multiple platforms and attack vectors..
Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET): An open-source penetration testing framework for social engineering with custom attack vectors..
Both serve the Penetration Testing market but differ in approach, feature depth, and target audience.
Payloads All The Things is open-source with 76,084 GitHub stars. Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET) is open-source with 12,355 GitHub stars. Vendor maturity, funding stage, and team size can be important factors when evaluating long-term viability and support quality.
Payloads All The Things and Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET) serve similar Penetration Testing use cases: both are Penetration Testing tools, both cover Linux. Review the feature comparison above to determine which fits your requirements.
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