head to head · open source
tfsec vs bernstein
tfsec has 7,065 GitHub stars, 559 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. bernstein has 1,206 stars, 186 forks, 368 open issues and last shipped today. tfsec leads on adoption by 486% (7,065 vs 1,206 stars). tfsec is written in Go under MIT; bernstein is written in Python under Apache-2.0. tfsec has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, bernstein 15%. bernstein was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (compliance), 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
| tfsec | bernstein | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-03-25 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 559 | ⑂ 186 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick tfsec if
- You weight community size — 7.1K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick bernstein if
- You want the bernstein 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 bernstein fits your workflow better
About tfsec
📣 tfsec to Trivy Migration As part of our goal to provide a comprehensive open source security solution for all, we have been consolidating all of our scanning related efforts in one place, and that is Trivy. Over the past year, tfsec has laid the foundations to Trivy's IaC & misconfigurations scanning capabilities, including Terraform scanning, which has been natively supported in Trivy for a long time now. Going forward we want to encourage the tfsec community to transition over to Trivy. Moving to Trivy gives you the same excellent Terraform scanning engine, with some extra benefits: 1. Access to more…
read the full tfsec overview →
About bernstein
"To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time." attributed to Leonard Bernstein the open source governance layer for AI agents website · docs · install · first run · glossary · limitations · name policy · discord · sponsor 简体中文 · 繁體中文 · 日本語 · 한국어 · हिन्दी · বাংলা · Русский · Español · Português · Deutsch · Français · Italiano · Nederlands · Polski · Svenska · Suomi · Українська · Türkçe · العربية…
read the full bernstein overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is tfsec or bernstein more popular?
tfsec has 7,065 GitHub stars and bernstein has 1,206. tfsec has the larger community by that measure.
Are tfsec and bernstein free?
Both are open source. tfsec is licensed under MIT and bernstein under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between tfsec and bernstein?
tfsec is written in Go and bernstein 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, tfsec or bernstein?
Choose tfsec if you want the larger community (7,065 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose bernstein if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.