head to head · open source
gitleaks vs atmos
gitleaks has 29,368 GitHub stars, 2,237 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. atmos has 1,379 stars, 175 forks, 289 open issues and last shipped today. gitleaks leads on adoption by 2,030% (29,368 vs 1,379 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; atmos is written in Go under Apache-2.0. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, atmos 13%. atmos was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cli), 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
| gitleaks | atmos | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 175 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gitleaks if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick atmos if
- You want the atmos 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 atmos fits your workflow better
About gitleaks
Gitleaks is an MIT licensed, Go based command line tool that detects hardcoded secrets such as passwords, API keys, and tokens in git repositories, files, and standard input, and it serves developers and security teams that need to keep credentials out of source control.
read the full gitleaks overview →
About atmos
Run your infrastructure anywhere. Atmos is the open source runtime for infrastructure — it builds, authenticates, and ships Terraform, OpenTofu, Kubernetes, Helm, and containers the same way on your laptop, in CI, and with AI agents. Auth, secrets, vendoring, caching, the toolchain, workflows, and CI are built in. Point every environment at the same reusable root modules and treat the rest as configuration. Stop stringing together 25 tools. Run it on your laptop. Run it the same in CI. Run it with agents. Everything is open source and free. [!TIP] You can try out atmos directly in your browser using GitHub Codesp…
read the full atmos overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or atmos more popular?
gitleaks has 29,368 GitHub stars and atmos has 1,379. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and atmos free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and atmos under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and atmos?
gitleaks is written in Go and atmos 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, gitleaks or atmos?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,368 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose atmos if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.