head to head · open source
ecapture vs vuls
ecapture has 15,490 GitHub stars, 1,647 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vuls has 12,281 stars, 1,250 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. ecapture leads on adoption by 26% (15,490 vs 12,281 stars). ecapture is written in C under Apache-2.0; vuls is written in Go under GPL-3.0. ecapture has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, vuls 10%. ecapture was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (golang, linux, 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
| ecapture | vuls | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ecapture if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick vuls if
- You want the vuls feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and vuls fits your workflow better
About ecapture
eCapture (旁观者) is an open source eBPF tool that captures SSL/TLS plaintext, database queries, and shell history on Linux and Android for security auditors, network engineers, and self hosters who need visibility into encrypted traffic without intercepting it.
read the full ecapture overview →
About vuls
Vuls is an agent less vulnerability scanner written in Go and licensed under GPL 3.0, aimed at system administrators and security teams that must find and track known vulnerabilities across Linux, FreeBSD, Windows and macOS hosts, containers, WordPress installs, programming language libraries and network devices without installing an agent on every machine.
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Frequently asked questions
Is ecapture or vuls more popular?
ecapture has 15,490 GitHub stars and vuls has 12,281. ecapture has the larger community by that measure.
Are ecapture and vuls free?
Both are open source. ecapture is licensed under Apache-2.0 and vuls under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ecapture and vuls?
ecapture is written in C and vuls 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, ecapture or vuls?
Choose ecapture if you want the larger community (15,490 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose vuls if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.