head to head · open source
opa vs flashlight
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars, 1,686 forks, 310 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flashlight has 1,605 stars, 48 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. opa leads on adoption by 664% (12,256 vs 1,605 stars). opa is written in Go under Apache-2.0; flashlight is written in TypeScript under MIT. opa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, flashlight 3%. opa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| opa | flashlight | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 48 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick opa if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick flashlight if
- You want the flashlight feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and flashlight fits your workflow better
About opa
Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source, general purpose policy engine that enables unified, context aware policy enforcement across the entire stack. It lives in the cloud native ecosystem as a graduated project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation landscape, and it is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license. Policy is expressed declaratively in the Rego language, and the project ships alongside a CLI, an HTTP REST API, a Go SDK, and editor tooling rather than as a single binary alone. The repository has been active for roughly eleven years, with 12,234 stars, 1,679 forks, and a last push dated 15 Septe…
About flashlight
Flashlight is an open source Android mobile performance audit tool written in TypeScript and licensed under MIT. It is positioned as a Lighthouse for Mobile tool, and it gives Android applications a performance score by aggregating different metrics. The project lives in the Android mobile ecosystem and covers native Android apps, React Native apps, and Flutter apps.
read the full flashlight overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is opa or flashlight more popular?
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars and flashlight has 1,605. opa has the larger community by that measure.
Are opa and flashlight free?
Both are open source. opa is licensed under Apache-2.0 and flashlight under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between opa and flashlight?
opa is written in Go and flashlight in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, opa or flashlight?
Choose opa if you want the larger community (12,256 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose flashlight if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.