Our take
Inactiveno commits in over a year- Activity
- 20
- Community
- 50
- Issues
- 21
- Pull requests
- 21
Sublist3r offers a focused OSINT workflow, but its inactive maintenance makes it harder to rely on for ongoing security work.
Good fit if
- You need a Python-based subdomain enumeration tool for authorized testing.
- You value combining multiple search sources with optional brute forcing and port checks.
- You can assess and maintain the tool yourself under the GPL-2.0 license.
Look elsewhere if
- You need a project with recent maintenance: there have been no commits for over a year, no releases in the past year, and no issues or pull requests closed in the recent measurement period.
- You require an actively maintained dependency or support workflow.
- GPL-2.0 obligations do not suit your intended use or distribution.
All health signals
| Last commit | 2024-08-02 (2.2 years ago) |
|---|---|
| Commits, last 90 days | 0 |
| Releases, last 12 months | 0 (latest 1.1, 2020-04-06) |
| Contributors | 22 (top contributor: 68% of commits) |
| Issues closed, last 90 days | 0 |
| Pull requests merged, last 90 days | 0 |
| Project age | 10 years |
Checked on 2026-10-27 with the GitHub API.
Overview
Sublist3r is a Python OSINT tool for penetration testers and bug hunters who need to identify subdomains of a target website. It gathers results from search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, and Ask, as well as sources such as Netcraft, VirusTotal, ThreatCrowd, DNSdumpster, and ReverseDNS.
Optional brute forcing uses the integrated subbrute module and its wordlist. The command-line tool can also check discovered subdomains against specified TCP ports, or be imported into Python scripts to return a set of unique results.
Key Features
- Collects subdomains from multiple search engines and security-oriented data sources.
- Optionally brute-forces names through the integrated subbrute module.
- Checks discovered subdomains against specified TCP ports.
- Supports selecting search engines for an enumeration run.
- Shows results as they are found in verbose mode.
- Saves results to a text file.
- Exposes a Python function that returns a set of unique subdomains.
Use Cases
- Penetration testers mapping a target domain before an authorized assessment.
- Bug hunters gathering subdomains to expand the scope of a permitted security review.
- Security teams combining search-engine discovery with optional DNS brute forcing.
- Python users incorporating subdomain enumeration into an existing script or workflow.
What you need
Detected in the repository
- Python (from setup.py)
License in plain words
GPL-2.0strong copyleft
- Commercial use: yes
- Modify and redistribute: yes
- You must keep: the license notice
- Share your changes: yes, the full source of anything you distribute that includes it, under the GPL
A summary, not legal advice: the LICENSE file is what applies.
Getting Started
Clone the repository and install its requirements:
git clone https://github.com/aboul3la/Sublist3r.git
See the README for dependency installation and usage details.
Alternatives
- subwiz: Subwiz predicts subdomains with a lightweight transformer and checks them by resolving DNS, while Sublist3r gathers results from search engines and security data sources.
| Project | Language | License | Stars | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sublist3r | Python | GPL-2.0 | 11.1k | Inactive |
| subwiz | Python | MIT | 389 | Active |
Considerations
The repository is marked inactive, with no commits for over a year and no recent releases. Although it has 22 contributors and code is not highly concentrated in one contributor, recent issue and pull-request handling is absent in the measured period. The README lists support for Python 2 and Python 3, while recommending Python 2.7 or Python 3.4, so teams should verify compatibility with their current runtime and dependencies. The project is licensed under GPL-2.0; review its terms before incorporating or distributing it.
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