head to head · open source
opa vs aircrack-ng
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars, 1,686 forks, 310 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aircrack-ng has 7,659 stars, 1,375 forks, 462 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. opa leads on adoption by 60% (12,256 vs 7,659 stars). opa is written in Go under Apache-2.0; aircrack-ng is written in C under GPL-2.0. opa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, aircrack-ng 18%. opa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| opa | aircrack-ng | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick opa if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick aircrack-ng if
- You want the aircrack-ng feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and aircrack-ng fits your workflow better
About opa
Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source, general purpose policy engine that enables unified, context aware policy enforcement across the entire stack. It lives in the cloud native ecosystem as a graduated project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation landscape, and it is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license. Policy is expressed declaratively in the Rego language, and the project ships alongside a CLI, an HTTP REST API, a Go SDK, and editor tooling rather than as a single binary alone. The repository has been active for roughly eleven years, with 12,234 stars, 1,679 forks, and a last push dated 15 Septe…
About aircrack-ng
Aircrack ng is a GPL 2.0 licensed suite of WiFi security auditing tools written in C, intended for network auditors, penetration testers, and compliance and risk management teams who assess wireless networks on hardware they control.
read the full aircrack-ng overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is opa or aircrack-ng more popular?
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars and aircrack-ng has 7,659. opa has the larger community by that measure.
Are opa and aircrack-ng free?
Both are open source. opa is licensed under Apache-2.0 and aircrack-ng under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between opa and aircrack-ng?
opa is written in Go and aircrack-ng in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, opa or aircrack-ng?
Choose opa if you want the larger community (12,256 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose aircrack-ng if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.