head to head · open source
gitleaks vs kapitan
gitleaks has 29,368 GitHub stars, 2,237 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. kapitan has 1,924 stars, 214 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. gitleaks leads on adoption by 1,426% (29,368 vs 1,924 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; kapitan is written in Python under Apache-2.0. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, kapitan 11%. kapitan 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 | kapitan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 214 |
| 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 kapitan if
- You want the kapitan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and kapitan 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 kapitan
Kapitan: Configuration Management for Kubernetes, Terraform, and Infrastructure Kapitan is an open source configuration management tool for Kubernetes , Terraform , and complex infrastructure systems. It helps teams generate, organize, reuse, and validate configuration across environments using an inventory driven model , templates ( Jsonnet , Jinja2 , Kadet ), and integrations with Helm , Kustomize , CUE , and external references. Kapitan provides native secrets management (GPG, AWS KMS, GCP KMS, Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault) and is designed for Platform Engineering and GitOps workflows. Website : Documentat…
read the full kapitan overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or kapitan more popular?
gitleaks has 29,368 GitHub stars and kapitan has 1,924. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and kapitan free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and kapitan under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and kapitan?
gitleaks is written in Go and kapitan 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 kapitan?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,368 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kapitan if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.