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Education Cybersecurity Competition Platform CTF Security Training Gamification

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Last Updated: 08-21-2026 07:53 AM (UTC)

CTFd

Starred by over 6,500 users on GitHub and trusted by organizations including Toyota, CTFd has been the leading open-source platform for hosting cybersecurity competitions since 2015, providing everything needed to run professional Capture The Flag events through a clean web-based administration panel without touching a database query. The framework supports both individual and team-based competitions with automatic tie resolution, configurable score freezing, and scoregraphs comparing the top teams with detailed progress tracking. Challenge creation offers static and regex-based flags, dynamic scoring that adjusts point values based on solve count, unlockable hints purchasable with points, file attachments uploaded to local storage or Amazon S3-compatible backends, and challenge attempt limits with automatic bruteforce protection. Version 3.8 introduced challenge logic fields controlling flag submission behavior with any, all, and team modes, integrated dynamic scoring into the standard challenge type, participant ratings and reviews on challenges, and admin-stored challenge solutions viewable after competition. The Markdown-based content management system enables custom pages for rules, FAQs, and resources, while SMTP and Mailgun integration handles email confirmation and password recovery. The plugin architecture supports custom challenge types, flag validators, and scoring algorithms, while the theme system provides complete visual customization. Import and export functionality preserves entire competition configurations for archival and reuse across events. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. Apache 2.0 licensed.

CTFd
CTFd
CTFd
CTFd
CTFd

Benefits

  • Complete Competition Management
  • Create challenges, manage teams, control scoring, and run entire cybersecurity competitions through a web-based admin panel without database queries or command-line configuration.
  • Dynamic Scoring System
  • Automatically adjust challenge point values based on solve count with configurable initial, decay, and minimum parameters, rewarding early solvers and balancing difficulty naturally.
  • Plugin and Theme Architecture
  • Extend CTFd with custom challenge types, flag validators, scoring algorithms, and visual themes through a modular plugin system with full REST API access for automation.
  • Import and Export Portability
  • Save complete competition configurations including challenges, flags, hints, files, and team data for archival, then import them to recreate events across different instances.

Features

  • Challenge Creation
  • Build challenges with static and regex flags, unlockable hints, file attachments, attempt limits, categorization, and configurable visibility with bruteforce protection.
  • Real-Time Scoreboard
  • Live scoreboard with automatic tie resolution, score freezing at configurable times, and interactive scoregraphs comparing top teams with individual progress tracking.
  • Team and Individual Modes
  • Support both solo and team-based competitions with team management, member limits, banning controls, and challenge logic requiring all team members to submit flags.
  • REST API
  • Comprehensive API for programmatic challenge management, user administration, submission retrieval, and scoring with token-based authentication for external integrations.
  • Content Management
  • Create custom pages for rules, FAQs, and resources using the built-in Markdown editor with SMTP and Mailgun email integration for confirmations and password recovery.