head to head · open source
gitleaks vs bree
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. bree has 3,293 stars, 87 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. gitleaks leads on adoption by 792% (29,364 vs 3,293 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; bree is written in JavaScript under MIT. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, bree 3%. gitleaks 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
| gitleaks | bree | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-02-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 87 |
| 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 bree if
- You want the bree feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and bree 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 bree
Bree is Node.js and JavaScript job task scheduler. It runs scheduled work inside Node.js apps. It uses worker threads to spawn sandboxed processes. It supports cron, Date, ms, later, and human friendly syntax. It lives in Node.js scheduling ecosystem.
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or bree more popular?
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars and bree has 3,293. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and bree free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and bree under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and bree?
gitleaks is written in Go and bree in JavaScript. 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 bree?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,364 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose bree if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.