Recon-ng

Recon-ng is a full-featured reconnaissance framework written in Python, designed for OSINT gathering with a modular architecture and interactive command-line interface.

OSINT Framework Automated Reconnaissance Modular Architecture Penetration Testing

Overview

Recon-ng is a powerful, open-source reconnaissance framework inspired by the Metasploit Project's modular structure. It provides a comprehensive environment for conducting OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) gathering with over 90 modules covering domains, companies, individuals, and threat intelligence. The framework features an interactive command-line interface, built-in database for storing results, API key management, and support for exporting data to various formats. Recon-ng is widely used by penetration testers, security researchers, and threat intelligence analysts for automated reconnaissance, data correlation, and investigative workflows.

Primary Use Cases

✔ Conducting comprehensive domain reconnaissance including WHOIS lookups, DNS enumeration, and subdomain discovery using multiple data sources.

✔ Automating social media intelligence gathering by scraping and correlating profiles, posts, and connections from multiple platforms.

✔ Correlating threat intelligence data by aggregating indicators of compromise from multiple sources and identifying relationships between entities.

Frequently Asked Questions

Recon-ng is an open-source reconnaissance framework designed for security professionals, penetration testers, threat intelligence analysts, and security researchers. It provides a modular environment for automated OSINT gathering and data correlation, making it suitable for both beginners and advanced users in the cybersecurity field.

Recon-ng includes over 90 built-in modules covering a wide range of OSINT categories including domain reconnaissance, company profiling, individual investigations, threat intelligence, data breach searches, social media analysis, and API integrations. The modular library is continuously expanding with community contributions.

Yes, Recon-ng is completely free and open-source under the GPLv3 license. The source code is available on GitHub, allowing users to customize modules, contribute improvements, and use the framework without any licensing costs. However, some modules may require API keys from third-party services which may have their own usage limits or costs.

Recon-ng includes a built-in key management system that securely stores API keys for various services. Users can add API keys using the 'keys add' command, and the framework automatically uses them when running modules that require authentication. This centralizes credential management and prevents hard-coding keys in modules.

Yes, Recon-ng supports multiple export formats including CSV, JSON, XLSX, and HTML. Results can be exported to the framework's built-in database for further analysis or exported to external systems. Recon-ng also integrates with other tools through its API, and modules can be chained together to create complex reconnaissance workflows.

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Category Info

Modular reconnaissance frameworks that provide extensible platforms for automated OSINT gathering, data analysis, and investigative workflows across multiple data sources.

Added On

August 18, 2026

Last Updated

August 18, 2026