PEDA vs pwndbg
GitHub Stats
About PEDA
PEDA (Python Exploit Development Assistance) enhances GDB with colorized disassembly, register display, stack/memory examination, and exploit development utilities. It provides commands for pattern generation and offset finding, ROP gadget searching, shellcode development assistance, heap analysis, and format string helpers. PEDA automatically displays context (registers, code, stack) at each breakpoint, dramatically improving the debugging experience for binary exploitation. It supports both x86 and x86_64 architectures and integrates with the standard GDB workflow while adding powerful automation for common exploit development tasks.
About pwndbg
pwndbg is a GDB plugin that transforms the standard GNU Debugger into a powerful environment for exploit development and reverse engineering. It provides an enhanced context display showing registers, stack, disassembly, and source code simultaneously on every breakpoint. The heap analysis commands (heap, bins, arenas, tcache) make it essential for understanding heap exploitation techniques like use-after-free, double-free, and heap overflow attacks. pwndbg includes over 100 custom commands covering memory search, ROP gadget finding, format string analysis, and automatic symbol resolution. It integrates with pwntools for seamless CTF workflow and supports both GDB and LLDB backends. With over 10,000 GitHub stars, it has become the standard debugging environment for CTF players and exploit developers, largely replacing PEDA and GEF.
Platform Support
Tags
Shared
PEDA only
pwndbg only