Scalpel vs Bully: Which Firmware Analysis Tool tool is Best in 2025?

Scalpel is an open-source, high-performance file carving utility pre-installed on Kali Linux at /usr/bin/scalpel, designed for recovering deleted or hidden files from disk images and raw block devices. Developed by Golden G. Richard III as an enhanced rewrite of Foremost 0.69, Scalpel leverages header and footer signatures to extract files, bypassing file system metadata. Supporting formats like JPEG, PDF, MP3, and DOC, it’s a critical tool for digital forensic investigators, incident responders, and ethical hackers conducting cyber forensic investigations and file recovery. Scalpel’s multithreading, GPU acceleration, and regular expression support make it exceptionally fast and versatile.

Bully is a robust open-source wireless network auditing tool for ethical hacking, seamlessly integrated into Kali Linux (version 2024.06.R1). As a Wi-Fi Protected Setup brute-force tool for cybersecurity, it targets WPS vulnerabilities to recover WPA/WPA2 passphrases, making it a top wireless password recovery tool for penetration testing. Written in C with a 1.4 MB size, Bully offers improved performance over Reaver, supporting Pixie-Dust attacks for rapid PIN cracking.