head to head · open source
garak vs pipelock
garak has 9,308 GitHub stars, 1,294 forks, 429 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. pipelock has 886 stars, 101 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped today. garak leads on adoption by 951% (9,308 vs 886 stars). garak is written in Python under Apache-2.0; pipelock is written in Go under Apache-2.0. garak has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, pipelock 11%. pipelock was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (llm-security), 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
| garak | pipelock | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.3K | ★ 886 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 101 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick garak if
- You weight community size — 9.3K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pipelock if
- You want the pipelock 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 pipelock fits your workflow better
About garak
garak is a free, Apache 2.0 command line vulnerability scanner for large language models that probes generative AI systems for hallucination, data leakage, prompt injection, misinformation, toxicity generation, and jailbreaks, and it is aimed at security engineers, red teamers, and AI developers who need to test the models they ship.
read the full garak overview →
About pipelock
Pipelock is an open source AI agent firewall written in Go and licensed Apache 2.0 that sits between AI agents and the network, inspecting mediated HTTP, WebSocket, MCP, and A2A traffic for secret exfiltration, prompt injection, SSRF, tool poisoning, and risky tool call chains, and emitting mediator signed action receipts so a reviewer can verify what the boundary decided from outside the agent runtime.
read the full pipelock overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is garak or pipelock more popular?
garak has 9,308 GitHub stars and pipelock has 886. garak has the larger community by that measure.
Are garak and pipelock free?
Both are open source. garak is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pipelock under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between garak and pipelock?
garak is written in Python and pipelock 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, garak or pipelock?
Choose garak if you want the larger community (9,308 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pipelock if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.