Install afl++ with Homebrew, MacPorts, zypper, apk, apt, pacman

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• afl-addseeds
• afl-analyze
• afl-c++
• afl-cc
• afl-clang
• afl-clang++
• afl-clang-fast
• afl-clang-fast++
• afl-clang-lto
• afl-clang-lto++
• afl-cmin
• afl-cmin.awk
• afl-cmin.bash
• afl-cmin.py
• afl-fuzz
• afl-g++
• afl-gcc
• afl-gotcpu
• afl-ld-lto
• afl-lto
• afl-lto++
• afl-persistent-config
• afl-plot
• afl-showmap
• afl-system-config
• afl-tmin
• afl-whatsup

Project history

The original AFL was developed by Michal Zalewski; AFL++ credits that origin while listing Marc Heuse, Dominik Maier, Andrea Fioraldi, Heiko Eissfeldt, and others as current maintainers. The public AFL++ GitHub repository was created in 2019, and the project has continued as an active release train with stable, dev, and release branches.

AFL++ consolidated a patch culture that had grown around AFL: LLVM and LTO instrumentation, QEMU and binary-only modes, laf-intel and Redqueen-style comparison solving, MOpt mutators, persistent mode, Unicorn mode, Frida mode, and other target-specific execution backends. For package maintainers, the important point is that AFL++ is not just one binary but a coordinated tool suite with many executable entry points.

Adoption history

AFL++ is distributed through several Unix package managers in the supplied batch facts, including Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, Arch, and openSUSE. The project also publishes Docker images and documents direct source builds, which made it easier to use the same fuzzing environment in CI, local research machines, and throwaway containers.

The upstream README points users to Google's FuzzBench aflplusplus configuration for comparisons, and the project keeps a papers page for academic citation. That combination of package-manager availability, Docker distribution, benchmark integration, and citation guidance is why AFL++ became the default AFL-family package for many security-testing workflows.

How it is used

The common workflow is to build the target with afl-cc or an AFL++ compiler wrapper, seed an input corpus, run afl-fuzz with an input and output directory, and investigate crashes or hangs written under the fuzzer output tree. Companion tools such as afl-cmin, afl-tmin, afl-showmap, afl-analyze, afl-plot, and afl-whatsup support corpus reduction, testcase minimization, coverage mapping, and fleet monitoring.

AFL++ matters operationally because its behavior depends on instrumentation mode, target style, and runtime environment. Packagers tend to care about LLVM/QEMU/Frida/Unicorn feature coverage, sanitizer compatibility, shell helper availability, and whether users get enough installed docs to navigate binary-only fuzzing, persistent mode, dictionaries, and crash replay.

Why package nerds care

For package nerds, AFL++ is a dense formula: many binaries, optional engines, architecture-sensitive instrumentation, frequent upstream releases, and a user base that notices quickly when a backend or compiler wrapper is missing. It is a good example of a security tool whose package is the development environment.

It also illustrates a common replacement story in package sets: the original AFL name is historically important, but AFL++ is the active branch many users now expect when they install an AFL-family fuzzer.

Timeline

• 2019: AFL++ GitHub repository created.
• 2026: AFL++ 5.02c published upstream.
• 2026: Supplied package facts show AFL++ packaged by Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, Arch, and openSUSE.

Related projects

• American Fuzzy Lop is the original project line credited by AFL++.
• Google FuzzBench includes an aflplusplus setup for comparative fuzzing benchmarks.
• AFL++ publishes related coverage and reachability analysis tools under the AFLplusplus GitHub organization.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/AFLplusplus/AFLplusplus
• https://github.com/AFLplusplus/AFLplusplus#readme
• https://github.com/AFLplusplus/AFLplusplus/releases
• source_facts.package-manager