BBLabs vs Root-Me: which one to practice hacking?

Free CTF challenges vs curated bug bounty labs

The underlying difference is one of purpose. Root-Me is an open, free catalog of CTF challenges organized by category: you go in, pick a challenge, capture the flag and rack up points. Its strength is variety and zero cost — there are web, cryptography, forensics, steganography, programming challenges and much more, with solutions contributed by a huge community.

BBLabs specializes in one thing: web bug bounty. Each lab replicates a real report from HackerOne, Bugcrowd or Intigriti, with its context, its exploitation chain and the bounty that was paid. It's not a board of loose challenges: it's a curated itinerary that trains your eye to find bugs that actually get rewarded.

Price: Root-Me is free, and that's worth saying

Let's be honest: Root-Me is free, and on that ground it's unbeatable. You can solve hundreds of challenges without spending a euro. BBLabs is paid — a single PRO+ plan from €7.99/mo — though it includes a free Academy in Spanish to study the theory of vulnerabilities before you subscribe. What you pay for in BBLabs is curation, a web bug bounty focus, official writeups, live labs and real bounty context. If your absolute priority is not to spend, Root-Me; if you value a guided, specific path, BBLabs.

Language: both speak Spanish

Good news for the Spanish speaker on both: Root-Me is multi-language (it was born in French, with a lot of content translated into Spanish and other languages), and BBLabs is 100% Spanish. Against English-only references (HackTheBox, PortSwigger, PentesterLab), being able to practice in your language removes friction. The difference is that in BBLabs everything — labs, writeups and Academy — is designed in Spanish from the start and centered on web bug bounty, while in Root-Me the Spanish coverage depends on the challenge.

Real context: abstract challenge vs a report that got paid

Many Root-Me challenges are abstract: they isolate a technique for you to learn, but disconnected from a concrete case. It's perfect for mastering fundamentals and competing for points.

In BBLabs each lab carries real bounty context: you reproduce the vulnerability exactly as it happened in a real program, you see the bounty that was paid and you follow a roadmap that shows your next step (Easy → Insane), with new labs every Monday based on recent disclosed reports. That context is what brings the practice closer to the day-to-day of a hunter who gets paid.

Who each one is for

Verdict: free and varied vs curated and real bug bounty

It's not a duel with a single winner. Root-Me is an excellent, free platform, with a variety of challenges that's hard to match: to start without spending and sharpen your skills across many disciplines, it's a reference. BBLabs does something else: it turns real bug bounty reports into curated labs you practice in Spanish, with bounty context, roadmap, writeups and live labs. If your criterion is zero cost and variety, Root-Me; if your concrete goal is to practice web bug bounty with real cases and a guided path, BBLabs is the most direct option. Many start free on Root-Me and jump to BBLabs when they want to specialize.