head to head · open source
gitleaks vs pipecd
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. pipecd has 1,355 stars, 364 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gitleaks leads on adoption by 2,067% (29,364 vs 1,355 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; pipecd is written in Go under Apache-2.0. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pipecd 27%. pipecd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ci-cd, cicd), 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 | pipecd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 364 |
| 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 pipecd if
- You want the pipecd 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 pipecd 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 pipecd
PipeCD is an Apache 2.0 licensed, CNCF Sandbox GitOps continuous delivery platform written in Go that gives teams one consistent deployment and operations experience across Kubernetes, Terraform, GCP Cloud Run, AWS Lambda and AWS ECS.
read the full pipecd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or pipecd more popular?
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars and pipecd has 1,355. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and pipecd free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and pipecd under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and pipecd?
gitleaks is written in Go and pipecd 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 pipecd?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,364 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pipecd if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.