Nikto vs dnsenum vs PowerShell Empire: Which Open Source AI Agent Runtime Environment tool is Best in 2025?

Nikto is an open-source web server and CGI scanner written in Perl, included in Kali Linux, designed for identifying vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in web applications. Pre-installed on Kali, it performs fast, automated scans to detect outdated software, missing security headers, dangerous files, and potential exploits like XSS or SQL injection. Using LibWhisker for HTTP requests, Nikto supports SSL, proxies, cookies, and evasion techniques, with a pluggable database of over 6,700 checks. It outputs reports in HTML, CSV, JSON, or XML, making it ideal for penetration testers, security analysts, and DevOps teams.

dnsenum is a multithreaded, open-source Perl script included in Kali Linux for enumerating DNS information about a target domain. Designed for penetration testers, ethical hackers, and forensic experts, it gathers extensive data such as host addresses (A records), name servers (NS), mail servers (MX), subdomains, and non-contiguous IP blocks. Key features include Google scraping for subdomain discovery, brute-forcing subdomains, zone transfer attempts, whois queries, and reverse DNS lookups.

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.