head to head · open source
gitleaks vs Archon
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Archon has 23,495 stars, 3,474 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gitleaks leads on adoption by 25% (29,364 vs 23,495 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Archon 15%. Archon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cli), 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
| gitleaks | Archon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 23K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gitleaks if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Archon if
- You want the Archon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Archon fits your workflow better
About gitleaks
Gitleaks is an MIT licensed, Go based command line tool that detects hardcoded secrets such as passwords, API keys, and tokens in git repositories, files, and standard input, and it serves developers and security teams that need to keep credentials out of source control.
read the full gitleaks overview →
About Archon
Archon is an open source workflow engine for AI coding agents, written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license. It lives in the AI coding ecosystem, alongside tools such as Claude Code, and is distributed through the Bun runtime and the GitHub CLI. The project describes itself as a harness builder: it lets a developer encode a development process as a YAML workflow and then run that workflow reliably across projects. Workflows are stored in a .archon/workflows/ directory and committed to the repository, so the same definition can be invoked from the CLI, a web UI, Slack, Telegram, or GitHub.…
read the full Archon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or Archon more popular?
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars and Archon has 23,495. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and Archon free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and Archon under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and Archon?
gitleaks is written in Go and Archon in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gitleaks or Archon?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,364 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Archon if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.