What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Gophish is running phishing simulation campaigns for multiple clients of different sizes. I have also used the Gophish API to automate certain phishing scenarios and integrate the tool into a cybersecurity awareness platform.
For example, I conducted a campaign for one of my clients to assess the maturity level and security awareness of their employees regarding phishing risks. We first defined the campaign objectives with the client, then selected the target audience, chose the scenario, and validated the landing page.
The selected scenario involved simulating an email from the HR department. We also reproduced a web page related to the client’s environment to make the exercise more realistic. The goal was to measure employee reactions, identify risky behaviors, and evaluate their overall level of awareness.
For this type of campaign, I use Gophish through its web interface, API, and campaign management features.
What is most valuable?
In my opinion, the best features of Gophish are recipient management, template creation, detailed reporting, and the API.
Recipient management makes it easy to organize target groups by client, department, user profile, or risk level. This helps prepare campaigns that are better adapted to each specific context.
The email and landing page templates are also very useful because they allow realistic and contextualized scenarios to be created. This level of customization makes campaigns more relevant and helps assess how users react to situations that are close to their real working environment.
I particularly appreciate the reporting capabilities, as they help measure campaign effectiveness and the client’s maturity level. Gophish provides key indicators such as email open rates, click rates, data submission rates, and behavioral changes across multiple campaign iterations.
The Gophish API is another strong feature. It makes it possible to automate several tasks, including campaign creation, email delivery, result collection, and integration with cybersecurity awareness platforms or other internal tools.
Another major advantage is that Gophish is open source and free, which makes it accessible, flexible, and easy to adapt to different organizational needs.
Gophish has had a positive impact on my work with several clients. For example, during an initial campaign, more than 70% of the targeted employees submitted data. After a contextualized awareness training session, we launched a similar campaign again, and the data submission rate decreased to around 40%. This improvement showed a clear increase in employee awareness and maturity regarding phishing risks.
What needs improvement?
Gophish is already an effective tool for running phishing simulation campaigns, but some features could be improved to better meet the needs of organizations and consulting firms.
The first area for improvement is reporting. The current reports are useful, but they could be enhanced with more advanced analytics, such as segmenting results by target audience, department, business unit, risk level, or campaign. This would make it easier to identify the most exposed groups, track maturity improvements over time, and generate reports that are better aligned with client expectations.
The second area for improvement is user and role management. In a consulting environment, it would be very useful to clearly separate access and responsibilities between managers, technical teams, and clients. For example, some users could have read-only access to campaign results, while others could create campaigns, manage templates, or administer the platform.
More advanced access control, with customizable profiles or roles, would make Gophish more suitable for multi-client environments and organizations with multiple stakeholders.
In my opinion, the two modules that should be prioritized in future versions are advanced reporting and user management. These improvements would increase the value of Gophish, especially for teams using it at scale or in a professional context with multiple clients.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for more than 3 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Yes, I consider Gophish to be a stable and reliable solution, especially for small and medium-sized companies. In this type of environment, the tool works very well when it is properly installed and configured.
For large enterprises or campaigns involving a high volume of users, stability depends more on the technical preparation. It is important to segment the target population into several groups in order to better control email delivery and avoid blocking or performance issues.
The SMTP server configuration also plays a key role. A poor configuration can lead to delivery delays, blocked emails, or incomplete results. However, with the right infrastructure, proper SMTP configuration, and a secure platform setup, Gophish remains stable and reliable even in larger environments.
Overall, my experience with Gophish in terms of stability has been very positive.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I consider Gophish to be quite scalable, especially for small and medium-sized companies. In this type of environment, the tool is generally reliable, easy to deploy, and capable of managing phishing simulation campaigns effectively.
For large enterprises or environments with a high number of employees, however, campaign execution needs to be carefully planned. I recommend segmenting the target population into several groups, for example by department, business unit, location, or risk level. This helps better control email delivery, reduce the risk of blocking or overload, and produce more actionable results.
Scalability also depends on the infrastructure used to host Gophish, the SMTP configuration, the volume of emails being sent, and the client’s security controls. With proper technical preparation and appropriate segmentation, Gophish can be used effectively in larger environments.
How are customer service and support?
Gophish support is different from what you would expect from a commercial solution, as it is an open-source tool. Therefore, there is no traditional customer support with a dedicated team or formal service desk.
However, my experience has still been positive because the documentation is clear and detailed enough to resolve most issues. I have never needed to contact technical support, as the available guides and community resources helped me find the answers I needed.
In my opinion, Gophish is well suited for teams with some technical skills that can rely on documentation and community forums. For organizations that require official support, service-level commitments, or direct assistance, this may be a limitation to consider.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was not using a similar solution before adopting Gophish. We selected Gophish directly after conducting a comparative study more than three years ago.
At that time, we evaluated several competing solutions, although I no longer remember the exact names of the tools that were assessed. Gophish stood out for several reasons: it is open source, free to use, well documented, and relatively easy to install thanks to the available resources and community feedback.
Another important selection criterion was the availability of a fairly complete API. This allowed us to integrate Gophish with other internal tools and automate certain tasks related to cybersecurity awareness and phishing simulation campaigns.
In the end, we chose Gophish because it met our functional needs while offering an excellent balance between flexibility and cost.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Gophish was generally quite straightforward, although I did face some difficulties at the beginning during the installation process.
These challenges were mainly related to the initial deployment and some configuration settings. However, after reviewing the documentation and using the resources available in community forums, the issues were resolved without major difficulty.
In my opinion, installing Gophish does not require highly advanced expertise, but it does require a solid technical foundation, especially in hosting, network configuration, SMTP setup, and securing access to the platform.
Overall, I would say that the initial setup is fairly accessible for someone with a technical background. It is important to read the documentation carefully, test the configuration before launching a campaign, and rely on the community resources when needed.
What was our ROI?
Yes, we have seen a return on investment with Gophish, mainly through licensing cost savings. Since Gophish is an open-source solution, there are no licensing fees, which is a significant advantage compared to some commercial solutions.
The main costs are related to hosting the platform, configuring it, and the time spent preparing, monitoring, and analyzing campaigns. Even with these operational costs, the overall cost remains controlled, especially in a multi-client context.
Another positive aspect of the ROI is the gradual improvement in employee awareness. By tracking campaign indicators such as click rates and data submission rates, it is possible to measure behavioral changes after awareness actions.
For example, in some campaigns, we observed a decrease in the data submission rate after contextualized awareness training. This shows that Gophish provides value not only from a cost perspective, but also by helping reduce risky behaviors.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with Gophish pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been very positive. Since Gophish is an open-source solution, there are no licensing fees or costs directly related to using the software.
The main costs to consider are related to hosting the platform, the required infrastructure, and the time spent on installation, configuration, maintenance, and administration.
In our case, the absence of licensing fees was a significant advantage, especially in a multi-client context. It allowed us to use a flexible and effective solution while keeping costs under control.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Gophish, we evaluated several competing solutions as part of a comparative study. However, since this analysis was conducted more than three years ago, I no longer remember the exact names of the tools that were assessed.
The main comparison criteria were cost, ease of installation, availability of documentation, solution flexibility, integration capabilities, and the level of automation supported.
Gophish stood out mainly because it is open source, free to use, and well documented. The absence of licensing costs was an important advantage. The available documentation and community resources also made installation and onboarding easier.
Another major advantage of Gophish was its API, which provided enough capabilities to integrate it with our internal tools and automate certain stages of the campaigns, including preparation, execution, and result collection.
Compared with some commercial solutions, Gophish may require more configuration and administration effort. However, it offers greater flexibility, a much lower cost, and strong adaptability. This balance between cost, simplicity, flexibility, and integration capabilities was the main reason we selected Gophish.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Gophish 9 out of 10.
My advice to organizations considering Gophish is to start by properly securing the platform installation. It is important to use HTTPS, protect access to the administration interface, and restrict access to authorized users only.
Before launching a phishing simulation campaign, it is also essential to clearly define the objectives, validate the scenario, run preliminary tests, and carefully select the target audience. An effective campaign should be contextualized and aligned with the organization’s maturity level.
I also recommend paying close attention to data management. Campaign results may contain sensitive information related to employees or clients. Therefore, it is better to limit data retention and delete campaign-related data after completion, in accordance with confidentiality requirements and internal policies.
Overall, Gophish is a very effective, flexible, and cost-efficient solution for running phishing awareness campaigns, provided that campaigns are properly prepared and the environment is securely configured.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other