head to head · open source
gitleaks vs Mage
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Mage has 8,823 stars, 990 forks, 624 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. gitleaks leads on adoption by 233% (29,364 vs 8,823 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; Mage is written in Python under Apache-2.0. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Mage 11%. Mage 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 | Mage | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 990 |
| 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 Mage if
- You want the Mage 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 Mage 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 Mage
Mage is an Apache 2.0 licensed, self hosted development environment for building, running, and managing data pipelines, aimed at data engineers, data scientists, and analytics teams who want to develop ETL, ELT, and orchestration workflows locally before scaling them.
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or Mage more popular?
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars and Mage has 8,823. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and Mage free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and Mage under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and Mage?
gitleaks is written in Go and Mage 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 Mage?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,364 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Mage if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.