PAGES
← all tools
◆ Digital Forensics & Incident Response

Turbinia

20250131 open-source

Turbinia is an open-source framework for deploying, managing, and running distributed forensic workloads to automate common forensic processing tools in the cloud.

Summary

Turbinia is an open-source framework, free to use, for deploying, managing, and running distributed forensic workloads such as Plaso, TSK, and strings across cloud or local machines. It runs as separate client, server, and worker components, with the server scheduling and parallelizing tasks that workers pick up continuously, making it suited to incident response and DFIRDFIRDigital forensics and incident response, investigating what happened during a security incident and containing it. The work includes preserving evidence, reconstructing activity and restoring systems. teams processing large volumes of evidence under time pressure rather than analysts working case-by-case by hand. The README itself points users toward OpenRelik, noting that Turbinia is in maintenance mode and will not receive new features, though it still sees occasional commits and releases from its long-running contributor base dating back to 2015.

Turbinia is an open-source framework for deploying, managing, and running distributed forensic workloads to automate common forensic processing tools in the cloud.

How Turbinia helps

How do I get several terabytes of disk images through Plaso and TSK without waiting on one machine to finish each in turn?

the server splits incoming evidence into tasks and hands them to workers that pick jobs up continuously, so many images or files are processed in parallel instead of one at a time

Where has this piece of evidence gotten to, and is it done yet?

the client can query the server for the status of submitted tasks, showing which are still queued, running, or finished

How much can I throw at processing before I need to add another worker?

because workers pull tasks from the server continuously, adding a worker increases parallel capacity without changing how evidence is submitted

Can I process evidence on a local machine and in the cloud with the same setup?

client, server, and worker components run independently and can each be deployed in the cloud, on local machines, or as a hybrid, so the same request path handles either

What happened during a specific worker's run when a task looked stuck?

the client can pull a bounded number of log lines back from a worker to inspect its recent activity without logging into the machine directly

Did evidence discovered mid-processing get picked up automatically?

any new evidence a task creates or uncovers is fed back into Turbinia so it re-enters the same scheduling and processing pipeline rather than being left for manual handling

all 10 features, with the evidence for each →

Languages

Not documented

Features

10 capabilities · 1 backed by code, an API document or a real run

Built from Turbinia's releases, docs, README and our own runs. “Seen” marks the month we first spotted a release the vendor didn't date. Group names and tags are our labels.

Compare with peers →

  • Turbinia covers 1 of the 8 investigation and response capabilities we track.

What Turbinia offers you

  • Command-line interface1
  • Kubernetes-native deployment1
  • Web management console1
All capabilities 10 capabilities
Programmatic API Access shipped suggested Exposes functionality via a dedicated API server and client libraries for submitting evidence, managing jobs, and retrieving outputs. 12 releases · 1 other source · first seen Jan 2022

Suggested capability: Incident case management. This is our guess, not confirmed.

release 12 total

  • Adds config.download functionality to the API server config 20240820 · Aug 2024 · source · release history
  • Updates OpenAPI spec to reflect new capabilities 20240820 · Aug 2024 · source · release history
  • Adds API endpoint download.output to retrieve task artifacts 20240820 · Aug 2024 · source · release history
  • Updated the turbinia-client API calls to use the revised client library 20240313 · Mar 2024 · source · release history
  • Added evidence upload and related endpoints to the API server and client 20231116 · Nov 2023 · source · release history
  • Generated OpenAPI code for evidence, workers, and statistics endpoints 20231116 · Nov 2023 · source · release history

example

  • Check the aggregate status of all evidence items in a specific large-scale investigation group. turbiniactl status -g <group id> 20220216 · Feb 2022 · source
Automated Triage and Analysis shipped Provides a suite of pre-defined tasks and recipes for analyzing credentials, file systems, logs, and containers to facilitate rapid forensic triage. 10 releases · first seen Oct 2021

release 10 total

  • Enables parsing and extracting saved Chrome credentials within Turbinia recipes 20250131 · Feb 2025 · source · release history
  • Adds ELF File Format Parsing capability for binary analysis 20250131 · Feb 2025 · source · release history
  • Adds Mach-O File Format Parsing capability for macOS binary analysis 20250131 · Feb 2025 · source · release history
  • New Turbinia LLM analyzer, LLM lib interface and LLM lib implementation for VertexAI 20240313 · Mar 2024 · source · release history
  • Adds the SSHBruteForceAnalysisTask to detect potential SSH brute force attacks 20230726 · Jul 2023 · source · release history
  • Adds containerd as a new enumeration method and evidence type with corresponding mounting support 20221103 · Nov 2022 · source · release history
Log retrieval verified suggested Retrieves log lines from a host, with options to specify the target hostname and limit the number of lines returned. 1 release · 3 other sources · first seen Jan 2022

Suggested capability: Remote forensic collection. This is our guess, not confirmed.

Also counts toward: Command-line interface

release

  • Provides new quick triage recipes for MacOS/Linux and updated Windows recipe 20220113 · Jan 2022 · source · release history

command line

example

  • Check status of running tasks turbinia-client status
Task Lifecycle and Status Management shipped Introduces improved mechanisms for tracking job status, managing evidence state in Redis, and validating configuration consistency. 3 releases · first seen Sep 2022

release

  • Introduces Task status v2 with improved task lifecycle management and logging updates. 20240930 · Oct 2024 · source · release history
  • Implemented a TurbiniaEvidence object in Redis for internal state management 20231116 · Nov 2023 · source · release history
  • The default Filter/Optimize Partitions process is now applied automatically to reduce workload. 20220919 · Sep 2022 · source · release history
Web Interface for Visualization shipped Includes a web-based user interface for viewing job status, task reports, and investigation request details. 3 releases · first seen Sep 2022

Also counts toward: Web management console

release

  • Adds request report view in the Web UI 20240820 · Aug 2024 · source · release history
  • Adds task report endpoint and corresponding UI changes 20240820 · Aug 2024 · source · release history
  • turbinia now ships with a Web UI V1 and related containers/deployment scripts for visualizing jobs. 20220919 · Sep 2022 · source · release history
Mass Storage Image Format Support shipped Expands the range of supported input evidence types to include Expert's Witness Format, APFS, and containerd image formats. 3 releases · first seen Sep 2022

Shared capability: Disk and filesystem forensics

release

  • Adds APFS filesystem support for mounting and processing disk images. 20230214 · Feb 2023 · source · release history
  • Adds containerd as a new enumeration method and evidence type with corresponding mounting support 20221103 · Nov 2022 · source · release history
  • Supports ExpertWitnessFormat disk images as a new input type for evidence processing. 20220919 · Sep 2022 · source · release history
Cloud-Native Deployment Management shipped Provides scripts and support for deploying and managing Turbinia infrastructure, particularly on Google Kubernetes Engine. 2 releases · 1 other source · first seen Oct 2021

Also counts toward: Kubernetes-native deployment

release

example

  • Deploy Turbinia workers on a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster. kubectl apply -f <path-to-turbinia-gke-manifests> 20211018 · Oct 2021 · source
Advanced Credential Analysis shipped Enhances password cracking capabilities with support for modern hashing formats and specific application credential extraction. 2 releases · first seen Sep 2022

release

  • Added PostgreSQL SCRAM password cracking support within existing task infrastructure 20231116 · Nov 2023 · source · release history
  • Added support for Yescrypt password hashing format in domain controller credential extraction jobs. 20220919 · Sep 2022 · source · release history
Encrypted Disk Support shipped Enables the processing of evidence from encrypted storage media, including LUKS and Google Cloud encrypted disks. 2 releases · first seen Oct 2021

Shared capability: Disk and filesystem forensics

release

  • Adds LUKS encryption support for unlocking encrypted disk images in Turbinia tasks. 20230214 · Feb 2023 · source · release history
  • Supports encrypted disks for Analyzer Tasks using the image_export API 20211018 · Oct 2021 · source · release history
Dynamic Rule Management shipped Allows YARA analysis tasks to update their detection rules dynamically without requiring a full restart of the service. 1 release · first seen Oct 2024

release

  • Enables Yara Analyser jobs to refresh their rules dynamically at runtime. 20240930 · Oct 2024 · source · release history

Lines in monospace are the tool's own words: help text parsed from its source, or an endpoint from its API document. Under release, a line is our summary of a dated release. Under docs, it is quoted from the tool's own documentation or website. Each links back to the source it came from.

Score card

  1. Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
  2. Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
  3. Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
  4. Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
  5. Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
  6. Community health
  7. Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
  8. Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
  9. Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
  10. Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply

Nine scores for Turbinia, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.

Score cards are part of every paid plan.

See plans →

Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.

How this is scored
  • Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
  • Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
  • Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
  • Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
  • Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
  • Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
  • Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
  • Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.

Release-note detail over time

See how much detail Turbinia puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.

Checking release-note history…

Explore the full chart →

Releases

Show

13 entries

  1. February 20251
  2. October 20241
  3. August 20241
  4. March 20241
  5. November 20231
  6. July 20231
  7. February 20231
  8. November 20221
  9. September 20221
  10. July 20221
  11. February 20221
  12. January 20221
  13. October 20211
    Show

    13 entries

    Project health

    Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in google/turbinia, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.

    1. Contributors 9 +2 vs prior 12 months
    2. Maintainers 0 +0 joined · −3 left, last 12 months
    3. Bus factor 0 committers behind half the commits
    4. Community-filed 100% of issues opened, last 12 months
    5. Median time to close 2.2 years first maintainer reply 2.7 days
    6. Open backlog 98 of 569 issues ever filed
    1. Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
    2. Open backlog 98
    3. Contributors / month 1
    4. Commits / month 1
    5. Stars 794
    Issue themes, last 12 months
    • bugs 100%

    Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this

    Libraries its release ships

    What its latest release locks, checked against known advisories.

    None of its release's images build from a lockfile we can read.

    Add the badge to your README

    Maintain this project? The badge links readers straight to this page, so they can follow every release here.

    Tracked by Cyber Toolchain Choose a badge style and copy the code →
    browse all tools → score card for your toolchain →