Cutter vs Frida

Cutter is a free, open-source reverse-engineering platform for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its Qt and C++ interface is powered by Rizin, and releases integrate the native Ghidra decompiler without Java. Other decompiler plugin options include RetDec and JSDec; Cutter developers officially maintain RzGhidra. For navigation, it provides a full graph view and a mini-graph, while its hex view can display and modify files. A Python scripting engine supports task automation, and plugins can be written in C++ or Python. Cutter also includes emulation for automation, cryptographic algorithms, and malware analysis. Its native and remote debugger supports dynamic analysis and is marked beta. Supported architectures include 6502, ARM, AVR, Dalvik, Game Boy, Java bytecode, and many others. Cutter is licensed under GPLv3, with official downloads for all three listed operating systems. Developer and community contact options include Telegram, IRC, and Twitter.

Frida is a dynamic instrumentation toolkit for developers, reverse-engineers, and security researchers. It lets users place scripts in running processes to hook functions, inspect APIs, and trace application code without source code. Documented uses include API tracing, diagnostics, encrypted-protocol analysis, and black-box testing.

Frida supports injected, embedded, and preloaded instrumentation. When injection is unavailable, Frida Gadget can be embedded in a program, including on jailed iOS and Android systems. Supported targets include Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, Android, FreeBSD, and QNX. Language bindings include Node.js, Python, Swift, .NET, Qt/Qml, and Go, alongside a C API. The CLI tools require Python and run on Windows, macOS, or GNU/Linux; the documented installation command is `pip install frida-tools`.