What Is Hack The Box? Is It Free? How HTB Works (2026)

What Is Hack The Box?

Hack The Box (HTB) is an online cybersecurity training platform where you practice hacking against intentionally vulnerable machines and challenges, legally. It launched in 2017 (CEO and co-founder Haris Pylarinos) and has grown into one of the largest hacking communities in the world.

Each machine hides at least two "flags", text strings that prove you got in. Finding them means doing what a penetration tester does: enumerate the target, exploit a weakness, then escalate your privileges, all on systems whose owner (HTB) has given you permission to attack.

HTB is now a family of products, which is where much of the confusion comes from:

• HTB Labs - vulnerable machines, challenges and Starting Point (the original product)
• Pro Labs - multi-machine corporate network simulations for advanced users
• HTB Academy - structured, text-based courses (modules) and learning paths
• Certifications - practical exams such as CPTS and CWES, delivered through Academy
• CTF events - regular Capture the Flag competitions with global leaderboards

How Hack The Box Works

Starting Point: The Guided On-Ramp

HTB's reputation for being brutal to beginners comes from its main machine pool. It is not the whole picture. Starting Point is a separate guided track for people who have never rooted a box, documented in HTB's Starting Point guide. Each tier mixes free machines with VIP+ ones, and free users can progress through it without the paid boxes.

It runs across three tiers. Tier 0 introduces the tooling and the idea of enumeration. Tier 1 machines revolve around a single main exploitation step, so the path from foothold to flag stays short enough to follow. Tier 2 machines are full-fledged: you enumerate, gain a foothold and escalate to root or SYSTEM, chaining steps the way a real box does. Every machine comes with guided tasks and a hint for each one, the opposite of the unguided experience HTB is known for.

Connecting to the Machines

HTB machines live on private networks, so you reach them in one of two ways:

• OpenVPN - download a configuration file and connect from your own Kali Linux (or other) machine. This is what most regular players use.
• Pwnbox - a browser-based Kali Linux VM with the usual tools pre-installed. Free accounts get a one-time two-hour trial; VIP+ gets unlimited Pwnbox time.

Hacking Machines and Capturing Flags

Once connected, you pick a machine and go after its two flags:

• User flag - in a regular user's home directory. You get it by finding an initial vulnerability and landing a foothold.
• Root flag - in the root (or Administrator) directory. You get it by escalating privileges to full control of the machine.

In practice, a typical Easy box goes like this: an Nmap scan shows SSH and a web server, directory brute-forcing turns up a forgotten admin panel, a vulnerable upload form gives you a shell as www-data, and a misconfigured sudo rule or SUID binary takes you to root. Enumeration is most of the work; the exploit is often the quick part.

Ranks, Points and Retiring Machines

Flags earn points, and your rank is calculated from the percentage of active content you have owned. The ladder runs Noob, Script Kiddie (above 5%), Hacker (above 20%), Pro Hacker (above 45%), Elite Hacker (above 70%), Guru (above 90%) and Omniscient (100%), as set out in HTB's introduction to HTB Labs.

The catch: when a machine retires, the points it gave you drop to zero. You keep the rank you reached, but holding a high rank means continuing to work through current machines. That is why HTB rank is read as a sign of recent, active practice rather than a lifetime score.

The rotation is weekly: one new machine is released and one older machine retires at the same moment. While a machine is active, write-ups are off-limits, so you are genuinely solving it yourself. Once it retires, official and community walkthroughs appear, which is why the retired library is where most structured learning happens.

Challenges and Difficulty Ratings

Beyond full machines, HTB offers standalone challenges in web, cryptography, reverse engineering, binary exploitation (pwn), forensics, hardware and misc categories. They are a good way to drill one technique without committing to a whole box.

Machines are rated Easy, Medium, Hard or Insane; challenges add a Very Easy tier below those. Treat "Easy" as relative to HTB: an Easy box still expects you to enumerate properly and work without hand-holding.

Is Hack The Box Free? Free vs Paid Plans

Yes, Hack The Box is free to start. A free account gets 20 active machines, more than 80 active challenges, active Fortresses and a one-time two-hour Pwnbox trial, with no credit card. Retired machines, unlimited Pwnbox and personal machine instances require VIP+ at $25/month or $223/year.

The free tier is enough to find out whether you like the format. It gets frustrating on shared instances, where another player can reset the machine mid-exploit, and you miss the retired boxes where the walkthroughs live. The annual VIP+ plan works out to about $18.60 a month.

On September 30, 2026 HTB added a second paid plan, HTB PRO, at $49/month or $490/year. It bundles everything in VIP+ with ten of HTB's flagship Pro Labs, and makes sense once you are ready for multi-machine networks. VIP+ stays on sale alongside it.

Hack The Box Certifications: A Quick Orientation

HTB runs eight practical certifications. Instead of multiple-choice questions, each exam gives you several days to compromise a simulated environment and then write it up as a professional report. The best known is CPTS (Certified Penetration Testing Specialist), a 10-day internal penetration test of an enterprise-style network. The others cover entry-level skills (CJCA), web exploitation (CWES, CWEE), defensive analysis (CDSA), Active Directory (CAPE), Wi-Fi (CWPE) and attacks on AI systems (COAE).

The certifications live in HTB Academy, not HTB Labs, so they sit behind a different subscription than the machines on this page. Exam fees, bundled vouchers and preparation paths are all in our breakdown of HTB Academy certifications and costs.

Who Is Hack The Box Best For?

HTB Is a Great Fit If You:

• Already know basic Linux, networking and the command line
• Enjoy figuring things out with minimal hand-holding
• Want an HTB certification such as CPTS, CWES or CDSA
• Are preparing for a career in penetration testing or red teaming
• Like competitive challenges and leaderboards

HTB Might Not Be Ideal If You:

• Are a complete beginner with no technical background
• Need step-by-step instruction to build confidence
• Want courses and hands-on labs in a single subscription
• Get discouraged quickly when stuck without hints

Where Hack The Box Fits Against Other Platforms

HTB sits at the harder, least-guided end of the market. It hands you a target and almost no direction, which is exactly what you want once you have the fundamentals, and quietly demoralising before you do. Guided platforms walk you through the material first; a formal course like OffSec's PEN-200 wraps its labs in structured training at a much higher price.

Rather than a shallow table here, our comparison of Hack The Box alternatives goes through pricing, features and difficulty across the serious options.

How to Get Started on Hack The Box

1. Build the foundations Linux command line (files, permissions, basic scripting), networking (TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, common ports) and how web applications work.
2. Set up your environment Kali Linux in VirtualBox or VMware with OpenVPN, or a browser-based option such as Pwnbox if you would rather skip the setup.
3. Do Starting Point, then Easy retired boxes Follow a walkthrough when you are truly stuck, and pay attention to how the author enumerated, not just the final exploit.
4. Build a methodology Reconnaissance, enumeration, exploitation, privilege escalation, documentation. Our network penetration testing course walks through each phase.
5. Take notes on every machine What worked, what failed and why. It becomes your personal playbook and trains the report-writing skills employers look for.