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Katana

Fast, configurable web crawler with headless and JavaScript support

Web Scraping & Crawling

Katana is a high‑speed, fully configurable crawler offering standard and headless modes, JavaScript parsing, automatic form filling, scope control, and flexible input/output options for automation pipelines.

Overview

Overview

Katana is a Go‑based web crawling framework designed for security researchers, DevOps engineers, and developers who need fast, automated site exploration. It supports both standard HTTP crawling and headless Chrome hybrid crawling, enabling deep inspection of JavaScript‑heavy applications. Features such as automatic form filling, JavaScript parsing (including jsluice), and technology detection make it suitable for complex reconnaissance tasks.

Deployment

The tool can be installed via go install (requires Go 1.24+), Docker, or pre‑compiled binaries. Configuration is handled through an extensive flag set or external config files, allowing precise control over scope, filters, concurrency, and output formats (STDOUT, file, JSON). Headless mode leverages a local Chrome installation or the bundled browser, and can be run in sandboxed or incognito configurations. Katana integrates easily into CI/CD pipelines, supporting resume capabilities and rate‑limiting for large‑scale crawls.

Highlights

Standard and headless crawling modes
JavaScript parsing and jsluice support
Automatic form filling and extraction
Fine‑grained scope, filter, and output customization

Pros

  • Very fast due to native Go implementation
  • Highly configurable via flags and config files
  • Supports headless Chrome for dynamic site crawling
  • Rich output formats (STDOUT, file, JSON)

Considerations

  • Requires Go 1.24+ for source installation
  • Headless mode is experimental and may need local Chrome
  • Large flag set can steepen the learning curve
  • Memory intensive when using jsluice JavaScript parsing

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Fit guide

Great for

  • Security researchers building automated reconnaissance pipelines
  • DevOps teams needing site map generation
  • Bug bounty hunters scanning large surface areas
  • Developers requiring JavaScript‑heavy site crawling

Not ideal when

  • Users without a Go environment preferring pure binary installers only
  • Environments lacking Chrome for headless mode
  • Small one‑off crawls where simplicity outweighs configurability
  • Low‑resource devices due to memory usage in JS parsing

How teams use it

Comprehensive site map generation for penetration testing

Produces a JSON list of all reachable URLs, paths, and resources across the target domain.

Automatic discovery of admin panels via form filling

Extracts form actions and parameters, revealing hidden login endpoints.

Technology fingerprinting in CI pipelines

Integrates with the `-tech-detect` flag to output detected tech stacks for each endpoint.

Continuous monitoring of large web applications

Schedules recurring crawls with resume and rate‑limit options to track changes over time.

Tech snapshot

Go99%
Shell1%
Makefile1%
Dockerfile1%

Tags

spider-frameworkheadlesshacktoberfestweb-spidergocrawlerclicrawler

Frequently asked questions

How do I install Katana from source?

Run `go install github.com/projectdiscovery/katana/cmd/katana@latest` with Go 1.24+ installed.

Can I use Katana without installing Go?

Yes, you can pull the pre‑compiled Docker image `projectdiscovery/katana:latest` and run it directly.

What is required for headless crawling?

A local Chrome installation (or the bundled browser) and the `-headless` flag; optional `-system-chrome` to use an existing Chrome binary.

Is automatic form filling stable?

Form filling is experimental; enable it with `-automatic-form-fill` and test on target sites before production use.

How can I limit the crawl scope?

Use `-crawl-scope` and `-crawl-out-scope` regex options, or predefined field scopes with `-field-scope`.

Project at a glance

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LicenseMIT
Repo age5 years old
Last commit2 days ago
Primary languageGo

Last synced 12 hours ago