head to head · open source
ECC vs LockKnife
ECC has 271,460 GitHub stars, 40,552 forks, 339 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LockKnife has 542 stars, 120 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 23 days ago. ECC leads on adoption by 49,985% (271,460 vs 542 stars). ECC is written in JavaScript under MIT; LockKnife is written in Python under GPL-3.0. ECC has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, LockKnife 22%. ECC was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-agents, claude, developer-tools), 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
| ECC | LockKnife | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 271K | ★ 542 |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-02 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 41K | ⑂ 120 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ECC if
- You weight community size — 271K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick LockKnife if
- You want the LockKnife feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and LockKnife fits your workflow better
About ECC
ECC is an MIT licensed open source agent harness performance optimization system that gives AI coding agents a coordinated engineering workflow — plan, test, implement, review, verify, remember, improve — for developers working in Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, and other harnesses.
About LockKnife
LockKnife is a unified Android security research toolkit that gives forensic investigators, penetration testers, and reverse engineers a case driven TUI workspace and a headless CLI for extraction, credential recovery, APK analysis, runtime inspection, and reporting from one framework.
read the full LockKnife overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ECC or LockKnife more popular?
ECC has 271,460 GitHub stars and LockKnife has 542. ECC has the larger community by that measure.
Are ECC and LockKnife free?
Both are open source. ECC is licensed under MIT and LockKnife under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ECC and LockKnife?
ECC is written in JavaScript and LockKnife 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, ECC or LockKnife?
Choose ECC if you want the larger community (271,460 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose LockKnife if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.