head to head · open source
gitleaks vs quirrel
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. quirrel has 927 stars, 68 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. gitleaks leads on adoption by 3,068% (29,364 vs 927 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; quirrel is written in TypeScript under MIT. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, quirrel 7%. quirrel 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 | quirrel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 927 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 68 |
| 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 quirrel if
- You want the quirrel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and quirrel 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 quirrel
Quirrel is an open source task queueing solution built for serverless applications. It is written in TypeScript, distributed under the MIT license, and lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem that surrounds serverless platforms such as Next.js deployments. The project describes itself as the task queueing solution for serverless, and its homepage and documentation sit at quirrel.dev and docs.quirrel.dev. The repository has been public for roughly six years, holds 928 stars and 68 forks, and was most recently pushed in September 2026. A notice in the README states that Quirrel joined Netlify, and the orig…
read the full quirrel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or quirrel more popular?
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars and quirrel has 927. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and quirrel free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and quirrel under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and quirrel?
gitleaks is written in Go and quirrel in TypeScript. 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 quirrel?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,364 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose quirrel if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.