# projectdiscovery/nuclei

Nuclei is a fast, customizable vulnerability scanner powered by the global security community and built on a simple YAML-based DSL, enabling collaboration to tackle trending vulnerabilities on the internet. It helps you find vulnerabilities in your applications, APIs, networks, DNS, and cloud configurations.

Repository: https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/nuclei
Homepage: https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/tools/nuclei
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: cve-scanner, subdomain-takeover, nuclei-engine, vulnerability-detection, vulnerability-assessment, vulnerability-scanner, security, attack-surface, security-scanner, hacktoberfest, dast
Last push: 2026-08-26T08:56:57+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 96, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2343, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 25, "gap_med": 20, "n_releases_24m": 32}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 30855, forks 3831 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:56.485966+00:00)

## What it is
Nuclei is a fast, open-source vulnerability scanner built on a simple YAML-based template DSL, maintained by ProjectDiscovery. It uses a large community-contributed template library to detect exploitable vulnerabilities across web applications, APIs, networks, DNS, and cloud infrastructure with minimal false positives.

## Use cases
- scan my web apps for known CVEs
- find subdomain takeover vulnerabilities
- run bulk vulnerability scans across many URLs or IP ranges
- write custom security detection checks in YAML
- continuously monitor my attack surface for new vulnerabilities
- automate DAST scanning in CI/CD pipelines
- check cloud and network infrastructure for misconfigurations

## When to choose
- you need fast, template-driven vulnerability scanning with a huge community template library
- you want to write custom detection checks without learning a complex scanner plugin system
- you need bulk scanning of URLs, IPs, ASNs, or file-based target lists
- you want low false positives via real-world exploit verification

## When to avoid
- you need deep authenticated internal network scanning comparable to a full enterprise vulnerability manager
- you want passive SAST source-code analysis rather than active probing
- you require a GUI-driven scanning workflow out of the box

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: vulnerability-scanning, security, cli, workflow-automation
- domain: security, penetration-testing, developer-tools
- platform: windows, go, cli
- tags: yaml-templates, dast, cve-scanning, attack-surface, subdomain-takeover, bug-bounty, community-templates, devops, linux, macos, docker, kubernetes

## Member repositories
- projectdiscovery/nuclei (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:56.485966+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T16:52:36.266692+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:56.485966+00:00, sha 330cd63369c9)
  - homepage: https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/tools/nuclei (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:35.789904+00:00, sha 155eeadbeecf)
  - site_page: https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:35.799701+00:00, sha f8adb7e49951)
  - site_page: https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/quickstart (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:35.801722+00:00, sha 3dad04b1713f)
  - site_page: https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/opensource/nuclei/install (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:35.804277+00:00, sha 248d369e518d)
  - site_page: https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/opensource/nuclei/faq (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:35.806135+00:00, sha 7829b621947c)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.