head to head · open source
vuls vs dockle
vuls has 12,324 GitHub stars, 1,247 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. dockle has 3,299 stars, 171 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. vuls leads on adoption by 274% (12,324 vs 3,299 stars). vuls is written in Go under GPL-3.0; dockle is written in Go under Apache-2.0. vuls has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, dockle 5%. vuls was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (go, golang, security, security-audit), 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
| vuls | dockle | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-08-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 171 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vuls if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dockle if
- You want the dockle feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dockle fits your workflow better
About vuls
Vuls: VULnerability Scanner Vulnerability scanner for Linux/FreeBSD, agent less, written in Go. Twitter: @vuls en Abstract For a system administrator, having to perform security vulnerability analysis and software update on a daily basis can be a burden. To avoid downtime in a production environment, it is common for a system administrator to choose not to use the automatic update option provided by the package manager and to perform update manually. This leads to the following problems. The system administrator will have to constantly watch out for any new vulnerabilities in NVD (National Vulnerability…
About dockle
Dockle Container Image Linter for Security, Helping build the Best Practice Docker Image, Easy to start Dockle helps you: 1. Build Best Practice Docker images 2. Build secure Docker images Checkpoints includes CIS Benchmarks See Installation and Common Examples Checkpoints Comparison TOC Features Comparison Installation Homebrew (Mac OS X / Linux and WSL) RHEL/CentOS Debian/Ubuntu Arch Linux Windows Microsoft PowerShell 7 Binary asdf mise From source Use Docker Quick Start Basic Docker Checkpoint Summary Common Examples Scan an image Scan an image file Get or Save the results as JSON Get or Save the results as…
read the full dockle overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vuls or dockle more popular?
vuls has 12,324 GitHub stars and dockle has 3,299. vuls has the larger community by that measure.
Are vuls and dockle free?
Both are open source. vuls is licensed under GPL-3.0 and dockle under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vuls and dockle?
vuls is written in Go and dockle in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, vuls or dockle?
Choose vuls if you want the larger community (12,324 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose dockle if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.