head to head · open source
Ente vs helm-secrets
Ente has 29,841 GitHub stars, 1,893 forks, 229 open issues and last shipped yesterday. helm-secrets has 2,037 stars, 156 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Ente leads on adoption by 1,365% (29,841 vs 2,037 stars). Ente is written in Dart under AGPL-3.0; helm-secrets is written in Shell under Apache-2.0. Ente has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, helm-secrets 8%. Ente was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (encryption), 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
| Ente | helm-secrets | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Dart | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 156 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ente if
- You weight community size — 30K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick helm-secrets if
- You want the helm-secrets feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and helm-secrets fits your workflow better
About Ente
Fully open source end to end encrypted photos, authenticators and more. Ente Ente is a service that provides a fully open source, end to end encrypted platform for you to store your data in the cloud without needing to trust the service provider. On top of this platform, we have built three apps so far: Ente Photos (an alternative to Apple and Google Photos), Ente Locker (a safe space for your most important documents and credentials), and Ente Auth (a 2FA alternative to the deprecated Authy). This monorepo contains all our source code the client apps (iOS / Android / F Droid / Web / Linux / macOS / Windows) for…
About helm-secrets
helm secrets ⭐ Don't forget to star this repository! ⭐ About helm secrets is a Helm plugin to decrypt encrypted Helm value files on the fly. Use sops to encrypt value files and store them in git. Store your secrets in a cloud native secret manager like AWS SecretManager, Azure KeyVault or HashiCorp Vault and inject them inside value files or templates. Use helm secret in your favorite deployment tool or GitOps Operator like ArgoCD Who’s actually using helm secrets? If you are using helm secrets in your company or organization, we would like to invite you to create a PR to add your information to this file…
read the full helm-secrets overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ente or helm-secrets more popular?
Ente has 29,841 GitHub stars and helm-secrets has 2,037. Ente has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ente and helm-secrets free?
Both are open source. Ente is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and helm-secrets under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ente and helm-secrets?
Ente is written in Dart and helm-secrets in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Ente or helm-secrets?
Choose Ente if you want the larger community (29,841 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose helm-secrets if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.