head to head · open source
ADR vs hol-guard
ADR has 1,575 GitHub stars, 148 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hol-guard has 630 stars, 76 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped today. ADR leads on adoption by 150% (1,575 vs 630 stars). ADR is written in Python under Apache-2.0; hol-guard is written in Python under Apache-2.0. ADR has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, hol-guard 12%. hol-guard was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 7 topic tags (agent-security, ai-agents, ai-security, claude-code), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| ADR | hol-guard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.6K | ★ 630 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 148 | ⑂ 76 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ADR if
- You weight community size — 1.6K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick hol-guard if
- You want the hol-guard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and hol-guard fits your workflow better
About ADR
ADR is an open source enterprise security system for AI agents. It is built in Python under the Apache 2.0 license and lives in the AI security and privacy ecosystem. It targets employee facing coding agents such as Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot CLI, and DeepSeek Harness, and customer facing agents such as AI support agents.
About hol-guard
HOL Guard is an open source, local first antivirus for AI agents that reviews shell commands, file access, package installs, and MCP tool calls before they run, built for developers and platform security teams running coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Gemini CLI.
read the full hol-guard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ADR or hol-guard more popular?
ADR has 1,575 GitHub stars and hol-guard has 630. ADR has the larger community by that measure.
Are ADR and hol-guard free?
Both are open source. ADR is licensed under Apache-2.0 and hol-guard under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ADR and hol-guard?
ADR is written in Python and hol-guard in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ADR or hol-guard?
Choose ADR if you want the larger community (1,575 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose hol-guard if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.