# Volatility

Volatility 3.0 development

Repository: https://github.com/volatilityfoundation/volatility3
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/volatility
Homepage: https://volatilityfoundation.org/
Language: Python
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: digital-investigation, forensics, incident-response, malware, memory, python, ram, volatility, volatility-framework
Last push: 2026-08-19T14:14:53+00:00
Link (homepage): https://volatilityfoundation.org/
Link (site_page): https://volatilityfoundation.org/frequently-asked-questions
Link (site_page): https://volatilityfoundation.org/about-volatility

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 84/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 57, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4602, "days_push": 14, "days_rel": 125, "gap_med": 119, "n_releases_24m": 6}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4357, forks 696 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:46.477374+00:00)

## What it is
Volatility is an open-source memory forensics framework for extracting digital artifacts from RAM captures of Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. Volatility 3 is the actively developed Python rewrite, while the original Volatility 2 codebase is archived.

## Use cases
- analyze a memory dump for malware
- extract running processes from a RAM capture
- investigate a compromised Windows machine from a memory image
- find injected code in volatile memory
- perform incident response forensics on a memory sample
- recover network connections and credentials from RAM

## When to choose
- you need to analyze RAM captures from Windows, Linux, or macOS systems
- you want the de facto standard, extensible memory forensics platform used by investigators
- you need plugin-based malware and artifact extraction from memory images

## When to avoid
- you only need disk or file-system forensics rather than volatile memory analysis
- you need a GUI-driven point-and-click forensics suite
- you require long-term support of the legacy Volatility 2 codebase, which is archived

## Facets
- artifact type: framework
- maturity: active
- function: security, cli, parser, developer-tools
- domain: security, reverse-engineering, operating-systems, developer-tools
- platform: python, windows, cli, cross-platform
- tags: memory-forensics, ram-analysis, incident-response, malware-analysis, digital-forensics, volatility, dfir, forensics, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- volatilityfoundation/volatility3 (main) score 84
- volatilityfoundation/volatility (mirror) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:46.477374+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 2026-08-29T17:31:22.872781+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/volatilityfoundation/volatility3 (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:46.477374+00:00, sha 36845f72e92f)
  - homepage: https://volatilityfoundation.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:14.843513+00:00, sha be87321194c0)
  - site_page: https://volatilityfoundation.org/about-volatility (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:14.855333+00:00, sha 04606229f92c)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/volatility3/json (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:14.856911+00:00, sha b8d16383824a)
  - site_page: https://volatilityfoundation.org/frequently-asked-questions (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:14.852993+00:00, sha 8bbfc6af5dd1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.