head to head · open source
garak vs akto
garak has 9,308 GitHub stars, 1,294 forks, 429 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. akto has 1,518 stars, 292 forks, 347 open issues and last shipped yesterday. garak leads on adoption by 513% (9,308 vs 1,518 stars). garak is written in Python under Apache-2.0; akto is written in Java under MIT. garak has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, akto 19%. akto 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
| garak | akto | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.3K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 292 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick garak if
- You weight community size — 9.3K 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 akto if
- You want the akto feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and akto fits your workflow better
About garak
garak is a free, Apache 2.0 command line vulnerability scanner for large language models that probes generative AI systems for hallucination, data leakage, prompt injection, misinformation, toxicity generation, and jailbreaks, and it is aimed at security engineers, red teamers, and AI developers who need to test the models they ship.
read the full garak overview →
About akto
Akto is an open source Java project under the MIT license. Its metadata presents it as an AI security platform for teams that secure AI agents, MCPs, LLMs, Agent skills, and Gen AI apps, while its README describes it as an open source API security platform. It lives in the open source API security and AI security ecosystem.
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Frequently asked questions
Is garak or akto more popular?
garak has 9,308 GitHub stars and akto has 1,518. garak has the larger community by that measure.
Are garak and akto free?
Both are open source. garak is licensed under Apache-2.0 and akto under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between garak and akto?
garak is written in Python and akto in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, garak or akto?
Choose garak if you want the larger community (9,308 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose akto if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.