Maltego vs PowerShell Empire: Which OSINT Investigation Platform tool is Best in 2025?

Maltego is an all-in-one cyber investigation platform developed by Maltego Technologies GmbH, headquartered in Munich, Germany, designed to accelerate open-source intelligence (OSINT) and complex cyber investigations. It enables users to mine, merge, and map data from over 120 data partners, including social media, dark web, and breach databases, visualizing connections through its flagship Maltego Graph tool. The platform supports novice analysts with Maltego Search for quick OSINT queries, technical investigators with Maltego Graph for deep link analysis, and public safety teams with Maltego Monitor and Maltego Evidence for real-time social media monitoring and evidence collection. Trusted by over 200,000 users, including the FBI, INTERPOL, and 60% of Dow 30 companies, Maltego is ISO 27001:2022 certified and GDPR-compliant, offering secure, cost-efficient access to data with customizable integrations.

PowerShell Empire is a robust open-source post-exploitation framework pre-installed in Kali Linux (version 6.1.2), crafted for penetration testers and red teams. This post-exploitation tool for ethical hacking leverages PowerShell and Python agents to execute stealthy attacks, making it a leading command-and-control framework for cybersecurity. With a 49.33 MB footprint and modules like Mimikatz and keyloggers, Empire offers secure communications and cross-platform support, empowering testers to simulate advanced persistent threats effectively.