pwndbg vs x64dbg
GitHub Stats
About pwndbg
pwndbg is a GDB plugin that transforms the standard GNU Debugger into a powerful environment for exploit development and reverse engineering. It provides an enhanced context display showing registers, stack, disassembly, and source code simultaneously on every breakpoint. The heap analysis commands (heap, bins, arenas, tcache) make it essential for understanding heap exploitation techniques like use-after-free, double-free, and heap overflow attacks. pwndbg includes over 100 custom commands covering memory search, ROP gadget finding, format string analysis, and automatic symbol resolution. It integrates with pwntools for seamless CTF workflow and supports both GDB and LLDB backends. With over 10,000 GitHub stars, it has become the standard debugging environment for CTF players and exploit developers, largely replacing PEDA and GEF.
About x64dbg
x64dbg is an open-source binary debugger for Windows, designed for malware analysis and reverse engineering of executables when source code is not available. It supports both x64 and x32 applications and provides features comparable to commercial debuggers like IDA Pro's debugger. Key capabilities include a full-featured disassembler, graph view for control flow visualization, conditional breakpoints with scripting support, a built-in assembler for live patching, memory map visualization, and an extensive plugin ecosystem. x64dbg includes IDAPython-style scripting, supports TLS callbacks and anti-debug bypass, and can handle packed/obfuscated binaries. Its active community maintains plugins for everything from API monitoring to de-obfuscation, making it the go-to free debugger for Windows binary analysis.
Platform Support
Tags
pwndbg only
x64dbg only