Best Free Phishing Simulation Tools in 2026 (Tested and Compared)

If you're trying to run a phishing simulation for your organisation without spending money, you have real options — but "free" means different things for different tools. Some are free but require a server and DevOps skills. Some are free tiers of paid platforms. Some are outdated or unmaintained.

This is an honest breakdown of every credible free phishing simulation tool in 2026, what each one actually requires to get started, and which one fits your situation.

The 5 best free phishing simulation tools

1. PhishSpark — Free Cloud Tier

Free tier limits: 500 email targets/month, 1 verified domain, 3 email templates

Setup time: 20–30 minutes

Technical skill required: Low — you need to add 3 DNS records to your domain

PhishSpark's free tier is the easiest way to run a phishing simulation if you want to be up and running today. There's no server to provision, no binary to install, and no SMTP relay to configure. You create an account, verify your domain (the platform walks you through adding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records), upload a CSV of email addresses, pick a template, and launch.

What you get on the free tier: Real-time click and credential submission tracking, HMAC-secured links (forwarded emails don't inflate your stats), a Microsoft 365 fake login landing page, and email results for every target.

Who it's for: Teams under 500 people who want to run a phishing simulation without infrastructure overhead. Interns and junior security analysts who need to demonstrate results without a server budget.

What you lose vs. paid: You're capped at 500 targets and 1 domain per month. No department-level breakdown reports. Limited template variety.

Create a free PhishSpark account →

2. GoPhish — Open Source, Self-Hosted

Cost: Free (open-source, MIT license)

Setup time: 4–8 hours first time

Technical skill required: High — Linux, DNS, SMTP configuration

GoPhish is the most widely used open-source phishing simulation framework. It's a compiled Go binary that you run on a server, then access through a web interface to build campaigns. It's powerful, well-documented, and has a large community.

The catch: GoPhish doesn't include email delivery. You need to:

• Provision a VPS (DigitalOcean, AWS, Linode — typically $6–12/month even if GoPhish itself is free)
• Configure an SMTP relay or install a local MTA (Postfix)
• Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records on your sending domain manually
• Manage your sending IP reputation (new IPs go to spam by default)
• Keep the server patched and monitored

Who it's for: Security engineers who are comfortable with Linux and DNS, and who want full control over every part of the infrastructure. Good for regulated environments that can't use any cloud service.

What you lose: No built-in templates, no managed IP reputation, no automatic DKIM signing. Every campaign requires verifying your infrastructure is still working.

3. Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET)

Cost: Free (open source)

Setup time: 1–2 hours

Technical skill required: High — Linux CLI, Python

SET is a penetration testing framework for social engineering attacks, included by default in Kali Linux. Its phishing capabilities include credential harvesting, spearphishing email attacks, and website cloning. It's primarily a pen testing tool, not a campaign management platform.

Who it's for: Penetration testers and security researchers running targeted assessments. Not appropriate for organisation-wide phishing simulation programmes — it has no campaign tracking, reporting, or authorisation workflows.

What you lose: No dashboard, no click tracking, no department reports. Built for one-off red team ops, not quarterly security awareness campaigns.

4. Lucy Community Edition

Cost: Free community tier

Setup time: 2–4 hours

Technical skill required: Medium — Docker or Linux

Lucy (now rebranded as Phished in some markets) offers a community edition that includes phishing simulation, landing pages, and basic reporting. The community edition is significantly limited compared to the paid version — restricted to 50 users and limited templates — but it's a real platform with a proper UI.

Who it's for: Small teams (under 50 people) who want a full platform experience but can't use cloud-hosted tools. Requires self-hosting but is easier to set up than GoPhish.

What you lose: 50-user hard limit, minimal template library, no DKIM auto-management.

5. Gophish + Amazon SES (effectively free at low volume)

Cost: $0 for GoPhish + ~$0.10/1,000 emails via SES

Setup time: 3–5 hours

Technical skill required: Medium–High

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) costs $0.10 per 1,000 emails. For a 200-person organisation running a quarterly campaign, that's $0.02 per campaign — effectively free. Combined with GoPhish, this avoids the IP reputation problem since SES has excellent deliverability. SES handles DKIM signing automatically for verified domains.

Who it's for: Teams that already use AWS and have an engineer who can wire the two systems together. Significantly better deliverability than running your own SMTP server.

What you lose: Still requires VPS for GoPhish, AWS account setup, IAM roles, SES domain verification — still a 3–5 hour first-time setup.

Comparison table

Tool	Setup time	Target limit	Server needed	Templates included	Click tracking
PhishSpark Free	30 min	500/month	No	3	Yes (HMAC)
GoPhish	4–8 hours	Unlimited	Yes	0	Yes (basic)
SET	1–2 hours	N/A	Yes (Kali)	Limited	No
Lucy Community	2–4 hours	50 users	Yes	Limited	Yes
GoPhish + SES	3–5 hours	Unlimited	Yes	0	Yes (basic)

Which free tool should you use?

The answer depends on two things: your target count and your technical comfort level.

• Under 500 targets, low/medium technical skill: PhishSpark free tier. It's the only option that works without a server.
• Any size, comfortable with Linux and DNS: GoPhish + SES. Best deliverability, truly unlimited.
• Red team / pen test context: SET. Not designed for ongoing awareness programmes.
• Under 50 people, want a full UI: Lucy Community Edition.

If you outgrow the free tier — more than 500 targets, or you need department-level reports — PhishSpark's paid plans start at ₹999/month ($12) for 1,000 targets. Still a fraction of GoPhish's total cost once you factor in the VPS and engineering time.