head to head · open source
opa vs aircrack-ng
opa has 12,425 GitHub stars, 1,706 forks, 310 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aircrack-ng has 7,860 stars, 1,404 forks, 462 open issues and last shipped 27 days ago. opa leads on adoption by 58% (12,425 vs 7,860 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 | ★ 7.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-09 |
| 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 Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source, general purpose policy engine that enables unified, context aware policy enforcement across the entire stack. OPA is proud to be a graduated project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) landscape. For details read the CNCF announcement. Get started with OPA Write your first Rego policy with the Rego Playground or use it to share your work with others for feedback and support. Have a look at the Access Control examples if you're not sure where to start. Install the VS Code extension to get started locally with live diagnostics, debugging and…
About aircrack-ng
Aircrack ng Badges GitHub CI Others Repository versions Description Aircrack ng is a complete suite of tools to assess WiFi network security. It focuses on different areas of WiFi security: Monitoring: Packet capture and export of data to text files for further processing by third party tools. Attacking: Replay attacks, deauthentication, fake access points and others via packet injection. Testing: Checking WiFi cards and driver capabilities (capture and injection). Cracking: WEP and WPA PSK (WPA 1 and 2). All tools are command line which allows for heavy scripting. A lot of GUIs have taken advantage of this…
read the full aircrack-ng overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is opa or aircrack-ng more popular?
opa has 12,425 GitHub stars and aircrack-ng has 7,860. 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 (12,425 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.