head to head · open source
gitleaks vs relay
gitleaks has 29,383 GitHub stars, 2,238 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. relay has 837 stars, 64 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gitleaks leads on adoption by 3,411% (29,383 vs 837 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; relay is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, relay 8%. relay 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 | relay | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 837 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 64 |
| 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 relay if
- You want the relay feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and relay 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 relay
Relay is a TypeScript, Apache 2.0 licensed real time messaging layer that gives AI agents shared channels, threads, direct messages, reactions, files, search and realtime events, and it is built for teams orchestrating multiple agents such as Claude Code, Codex or custom harnesses.
read the full relay overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or relay more popular?
gitleaks has 29,383 GitHub stars and relay has 837. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and relay free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and relay under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and relay?
gitleaks is written in Go and relay 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 relay?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,383 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose relay if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.