PAGES
← all tools
◆ Wireless & RF

wifite

2.8.2 open-source

Automated wireless network auditing tool that runs existing tools to capture and crack WEP, WPAWPAA Wi-Fi authentication and encryption standard maintained by the Wi-Fi Alliance, replacing WEP; cyber tools target it to audit wireless network credentials and key exchange handshakes./WPA2/WPA3WPA3The third generation of the Wi-Fi Protected Access authentication and encryption standard, maintained by the Wi-Fi Alliance, offering stronger handshake protection and per-session encryption compared to WPA2., and WPS credentials.

Summary

wifite is an open-source command-line tool that automates auditing of Wi-Fi network passwords, and it is free to use. Rather than replacing existing wireless attack tools, it wraps them, so a user selects a target and wifite drives the right sequence of WPS pixie-dust and PIN attacks, WPA/WPA2 handshake and PMKIDPMKIDA 128-bit identifier derived from a PMK, the access point MAC, and the client MAC in WPA2 handshakes, allowing offline cracking of Wi-Fi passwords without capturing a full four-way handshake. capture, WPA3 SAE capture and downgrade attacks, WEP attacks, and evil-twin rogue AP capture, then hands captured data to crackers like Hashcat. It suits penetration testers and red teamers auditing wireless networks they're authorized to test, rather than defenders monitoring them. It sits in the wireless-security category as a front end over tools such as aircrack-ng and reaver rather than a replacement for them. First committed in 2015, it has drawn 61 contributors and 224 commits in the past year, with its last release 300 days ago.

Automated wireless network auditing tool that runs existing tools to capture and crack WEP, WPA/WPA2/WPA3, and WPS credentials.

How wifite helps

Which access points in range are actually worth attacking, and by what weakness?

scans for nearby networks and sorts them by what's crackable — WPS-enabled, WPA/WPA2 with clients to deauth, WPA3 SAE, or WEP — instead of you reading raw airodump output

Can I recover this network's password without a client ever connecting during my test?

captures a PMKID hash from the access point directly, skipping the need to wait for or force a handshake

Is this WPA3 network actually enforcing WPA3, or can it be forced down to a weaker handshake I can crack?

runs transition-mode downgrade attacks that push a mixed WPA2/WPA3 network into WPA2 and captures the resulting handshake

Do any of these routers still have WPS enabled with a guessable or null PIN?

runs the offline pixie-dust attack, the online PIN brute-force, and the offline NULL PIN attack against WPS in sequence, without you tracking which one applies

What password will users actually type into a fake version of this network?

stands up an evil-twin rogue AP with a captive portal and logs whatever credentials a connecting client submits

Which of these captured handshakes or PINs actually crack, and what's the password?

hands the captured data straight to Hashcat or the underlying crackers and reports back the recovered key

all 9 features, with the evidence for each →

Languages

Not documented

Features

9 capabilities · 4 backed by code, an API document or a real run

Built from wifite'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 →

What wifite offers you

  • Command-line interface
All capabilities 9 capabilities
WPA3 network auditing verified Enables targeting and auditing of WPA3-protected wireless networks. 3 releases · 3 other sources · first seen Jan 2020

release

  • Adds support for Hashcat mode 22000 (replaces deprecated mode 2500) for WPA/WPA2 cracking. 2.8.0 · Oct 2025 · source · release history
  • Switches to use airmon-ng (VIF) first instead of legacy methods. 2.6.9 · May 2023 · source · release history
  • Adds 5ghz channels to standard scan to discover all APs 2.5.1 · Jan 2020 · source · release history

docs

  • Automated wireless network auditing tool that runs existing tools to capture and crack WEP, WPA/WPA2/WPA3, and WPS credentials.

command line

OWE network auditing verified Enables targeting and auditing of OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption) networks. 4 releases · 1 other source · first seen Jan 2020

release

  • WPS attacks: --no-pixie flag no longer disables other WPS attacks, allowing remaining WPS methods to proceed independently. 2.8.2 · Oct 2025 · source · release history
  • Adds detect capability for AP deauth requests to allow early identification of targeted networks 2.6.0 · Feb 2022 · source · release history
  • Added --no-nullpin option (to skip attack) 2.5.8 · Jan 2021 · source · release history
  • Adds hostapd as a new capability for attack workflows 2.5.1 · Jan 2020 · source · release history

command line

Process management and stability shipped Enhances the underlying execution environment by managing zombie processes, enforcing memory limits on command outputs and target lists, and handling graceful shutdowns. 4 releases · first seen Oct 2025

release

  • Adds output size limits in the Process class to handle large command outputs without memory exhaustion. 2.8.0 · Oct 2025 · source · release history
  • Adds graceful shutdown with escalating signal termination (SIGINT → SIGTERM → SIGKILL). 2.8.0 · Oct 2025 · source · release history
  • Introduces a new ProcessManager class for tracking and cleaning up zombie processes. 2.8.0 · Oct 2025 · source · release history
  • Enforces scanner target list size limits (1000 max) and archived target cleanup (500 max, keep newest 300), preventing memory bloat during long scans. 2.8.0 · Oct 2025 · source · release history
Database update verified Updates the tool's local database used during auditing operations. 1 release · 1 other source · first seen Feb 2022

release

  • Adds feature for skipping already cracked APs to reduce redundant work during a session 2.6.0 · Feb 2022 · source · release history

command line

Verbose output verified Produces detailed output during tool operation for closer inspection of activity. 2 other sources · first seen Oct 2025

command line

Installation automation shipped Provides scripts and Makefile commands to simplify the installation and updating of tool dependencies. 1 release · 1 other source · first seen Jan 2021

release

example

  • Update the cyber tool's dependencies using the new Makefile commands instead of manual setup.py fixes. make update 2.5.8 · Jan 2021 · source
Execution automation shipped Provides example automation scripts to streamline the execution of audit and attack workflows. 1 release · first seen Jan 2023

release

  • tools/script/run-automation.sh: Adds example automation script for running attacks 2.6.8 · Jan 2023 · source · release history
OUI database automation shipped Provides scripts to fetch and update Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI) data used for vendor mapping during network auditing. 1 release · first seen Jan 2023

release

  • tools/script/fetch-oui.sh: Adds OUI fetching script module 2.6.8 · Jan 2023 · source · release history
Wi-Fi handshake capture optimization shipped Enhances memory cache/flush handling and timer controls within the `wash` component to improve stability during capture operations. 1 release · first seen Jan 2023

release

  • wash: Adds a customized version with enhanced memory cache/flush handling and timer controls 2.6.8 · Jan 2023 · 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 wifite, 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 wifite 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

7 entries

  1. October 20252
  2. May 20231
  3. January 20231
  4. February 20221
  5. January 20211
  6. January 20201

    7 entries

    Project health

    Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in kimocoder/wifite2, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.

    1. Contributors 13 +9 vs prior 12 months
    2. Maintainers 1 +0 joined · −0 left, last 12 months
    3. Bus factor 1 committers behind half the commits
    4. Community-filed 90% of issues opened, last 12 months
    5. Median time to close 150 days first maintainer reply 8.6 days
    6. Open backlog 9 of 181 issues ever filed
    1. Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
    2. Open backlog 9
    3. Contributors / month 1
    4. Commits / month 2
    5. Stars 1,682
    Issue themes, last 12 months
    • bugs 3%
    • other 97%

    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

    Articles

    1 article · updated Nov 4, 2026

    Where wifite turns up in what others publish: how-tos, attack reports that name it, and incident write-ups. A row says why it is here and quotes where the article names it; the link goes to the publisher.

    Tutorials & guides 1

    • Wireless Penetration Testing: Wifite Hacking Articles
      Let’s first see which wireless network I’m connected to currently wifite -i wlan0 My access point is on channel 10.
      2 more quotes
      Let’s see what all access points are operating on the same channel wifite -c 10 Here, you can see that monitor mode is being auto-enabled while scanning.
      Wifite has detected two more networks on channel 10.

    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 →