smali/baksmali vs xocopy: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
smali/baksmali is a free offensive security tool. xocopy is a free offensive security tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best offensive security fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Android security teams and red teamers doing malware analysis need smali/baksmali because it's the only tool that reliably converts Dalvik bytecode back to human-readable assembly, something closed-source decompilers routinely botch on obfuscated samples. The 6,608 GitHub stars reflect actual usage across threat intelligence shops and forensics labs where the open-source codebase lets you patch it when vendors' tools fail. This isn't for buyers wanting a polished UI or one-click threat scoring; you're reading assembly code by hand and the learning curve is real.
Red team operators and penetration testers running Unix/Linux infrastructure will find xocopy invaluable for the specific attack path it enables: executing binaries when you have write but not read permissions, a constraint that defeats most post-exploitation tooling. The technique exploits a genuine Unix permission model quirk that standard defensive controls rarely account for. Not applicable if you're defending Windows environments or need cross-platform capability; this is a narrow, deliberate Unix primitive for offensive practitioners who understand their target OS deeply.
