HailBytes SAT vs Gophish
Both self-hosted phishing-simulation platforms. HailBytes SAT adds enterprise SSO, AI templates, multi-tenant MSSP isolation, marketplace deployment, and a managed support tier on top of the self-hosted control story Gophish made popular.
GoPhish walkthroughs from our channel
HailBytes SAT is the production-hardened, cloud-deployed evolution of GoPhish. Here are the GoPhish setup videos teams start with.
Architecture, hardening, and first campaign on AWS.
The full GoPhish phishing-simulation walkthrough.
The fast end-to-end AWS deployment.
TL;DR
Gophish is the original free, open-source phishing simulation framework, widely used for self-built lab environments, red-team engagements, and one-off campaigns. HailBytes SAT is a self-hosted, commercially licensed platform aimed at the same control-first buyer, with the enterprise scaffolding around it: SSO, audit logs, multi-tenant per-instance isolation, AI-generated templates, marketplace deployment, and commercial support.
- Pick HailBytes SAT if you need SSO, audit logs, multi-tenant MSSP isolation, AI templates, marketplace procurement, or a vendor on the other end of a support contract.
- Stay with Gophish if you have engineering capacity, a single-tenant use case, and zero budget. It’s a great primitive for that profile.
Pricing & Cost Model
| Dimension | HailBytes SAT | Gophish |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing axis | Infrastructure ($0.24/vCPU/hour) + optional support tier | Free (you run it) |
| 500-user annual cost | $11,760 + support (8 vCPU; $16,800 list) | $0 + your engineering time |
| Hidden costs | Your own cloud bill for the VM (about $280/month at 8 vCPU); no engineering time | Engineering time, deliverability tuning, infrastructure ops |
| Free trial | 30 days via AWS / Azure Marketplace | Always free |
| Procurement path | Cloud marketplace (counts toward EDP / MACC) | GitHub clone |
HailBytes figures are the 1-year commitment price — delivered as an AWS or Azure private offer, not a discount on the published meter — with list alongside, so the comparison sits on the same annual-contract basis as the competitor column. 8 vCPU ($16,800 list) is the entry size. The meter covers software only; the VM, storage, and networking run in your own cloud account and are billed separately at roughly $35/vCPU/month — $280/month at 8 vCPU, $560 at 16, $1,120 at 32 — so scale that line to the size on the row you are reading, not to 8 vCPU. All-in at 8 vCPU that is about $20,160/year at list or $15,120 on a 1-year commitment, and every break-even quoted on this page is calculated on that all-in basis. Full pricing.
Gophish’s real cost is engineering time: standing it up, hardening it, configuring SMTP deliverability, building reporting, and operating it. For a one-off red-team engagement that’s fine. For a continuous program at 500+ users it’s a meaningful operational tax. Both options run on your own cloud account, so the honest comparison is our software fee against labour: at a fully-loaded $100–$150 per hour for a senior engineer — the rate this claim assumes, and the only rate it rests on — the $11,760/year committed instance buys out roughly 78–118 hours a year, or 112–168 hours at the $16,800 list price. If your team can build and run the equivalent in fewer hours than that, Gophish is the cheaper answer.
Architecture & Control
| Dimension | HailBytes SAT | Gophish |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | AWS / Azure Marketplace AMI / VM image | Manual install (Go binary + DB) |
| License | HailBytes Commercial License (commercial, not open source) | MIT (open source) |
| Hosting model | Self-hosted in your AWS / Azure account | Self-hosted (your infrastructure) |
| Multi-tenant isolation | One VM per tenant (clean MSSP boundary) | 🟡 Single-tenant per instance |
| OIDC / SSO | ✅ Built-in | ❌ Not in core |
| Audit logs | ✅ JSON / CSV export | 🟡 Basic |
| Commercial support | ✅ Available | ❌ Community-only |
Capability Comparison
| Capability | HailBytes SAT | Gophish |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign engine | ✅ | ✅ The original |
| Custom templates | ✅ Unlimited | ✅ Unlimited |
| AI-generated templates | ✅ Built-in (OpenAI / Ollama) | ❌ |
| Post-click training quizzes | ✅ Built-in | ❌ Need to build it |
| Pre-built training-content library | 🟡 Community-driven | ❌ Not the use case |
| SOC 2 / HIPAA / PCI-DSS evidence | ✅ CSV-exportable | 🟡 Roll your own reporting |
| REST API + webhooks | ✅ Full surface | ✅ Solid API |
| SIEM integration | ✅ Splunk, Sentinel, Elastic, Chronicle | 🟡 Webhook only, you write the integration |
| SMTP deliverability tuning | ✅ Templated SES / SendGrid setup | ❌ DIY (the real Gophish operational pain) |
| White-label branding | ✅ Built-in — one brand per instance | 🟡 Code change |
| Government cloud (GovCloud / Azure Gov) | ✅ Both | 🟡 You install it there |
When HailBytes SAT Wins
- Continuous program operation. SSO, audit logs, multi-tenant isolation, and packaged deliverability config remove the operational tax of running Gophish for the long haul.
- MSSPs and pen-test firms. Per-instance multi-tenancy and white-label support make resold simulation viable. Gophish needs custom multi-tenant work to do this safely.
- Cloud-first procurement. Marketplace charges count toward AWS EDP / Azure MACC commits. Free OSS doesn’t spend down those commits.
- Compliance evidence. SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS evidence export is built in.
When Gophish Wins
- One-off red-team engagements. Gophish is the standard primitive for short-lived, single-engagement campaigns and lab environments.
- You have engineering capacity and a strict zero-software-cost mandate.
- You want to fork the codebase and build something custom on top. Gophish is MIT-licensed; the HailBytes Commercial License permits modification for your own deployment but not redistribution.
Try HailBytes SAT
30-day free trial through AWS Marketplace and Azure Marketplace, including the underlying VM. If you’ve been running Gophish and the operational tax is starting to show, this is a five-minute test.
Related Comparisons
HailBytes SAT is built on the Gophish engine, so a Gophish shortlist tends to expand into the rest of the lower-friction / suite-bundled SAT options before a full enterprise SaaS:
- vs Sophos Phish Threat — bundled with Sophos Central.
- vs Ninjio — animated story-based training at the lighter end.
- vs CybSafe — behaviour-science training platform.
- Full SAT comparison matrix — every vendor side by side, plus the HailBytes SAT product page.
See HailBytes SAT in Action
Skip the slide deck. Watch the product run end-to-end before you book a call.
Try HailBytes SAT Free
Get a free trial deployment on AWS or Azure. Our team walks you through setup and your first steps — whether that’s a single organization or a multi-client rollout.
- ✓ 30-day free trial on AWS or Azure
- ✓ Guided onboarding from our security team
- ✓ No credit card required to start
- ✓ Pre-built phishing templates included