head to head · open source
gitleaks vs harmonist
gitleaks has 30,603 GitHub stars, 2,330 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. harmonist has 2,244 stars, 209 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. gitleaks leads on adoption by 1,264% (30,603 vs 2,244 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; harmonist is written in Python under MIT. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, harmonist 9%. 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 | harmonist | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-06-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 209 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gitleaks if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick harmonist if
- You want the harmonist feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and harmonist fits your workflow better
About gitleaks
Gitleaks [!WARNING] Gitleaks is feature complete. I'm not merging new features into Gitleaks. Future releases will be security patches only. I'm shifting my focus to Betterleaks [license]: ./LICENSE [badge license]: [go docs badge]: [go docs]: [badge build]: [build]: [go report card badge]: [go report card]: [dockerhub]: [dockerhub badge]: [gitleaks action]: [gitleaks badge]: [![GitHub Action Test][badge build]][build] [![Docker Hub][dockerhub badge]][dockerhub] [![Gitleaks Action][gitleaks badge]][gitleaks action] [![GoDoc][go docs badge]][go docs] [![GoReportCard][go report card badge]][go report card]…
read the full gitleaks overview →
About harmonist
If you are an AI agent asked to install or integrate this pack: read integration prompt.md and execute its steps. Do not apply AGENTS.template.md as a live rule inside the pack folder — it is the template that becomes the user project's AGENTS.md during integration. Harmonist Portable AI agent orchestration with mechanical protocol enforcement A drop in multi agent framework for Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, Windsurf, Aider, and other AI coding assistants. Built and maintained by GammaLab · @GammaLabTechnologies Most AI coding frameworks trust the language model to follow the rules. Harmonist refuses to let it…
read the full harmonist overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or harmonist more popular?
gitleaks has 30,603 GitHub stars and harmonist has 2,244. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and harmonist free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and harmonist under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and harmonist?
gitleaks is written in Go and harmonist in Python. 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 harmonist?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (30,603 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose harmonist if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.