head to head · open source
gitleaks vs rulego
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. rulego has 1,605 stars, 156 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. gitleaks leads on adoption by 1,730% (29,364 vs 1,605 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; rulego is written in Go under Apache-2.0. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, rulego 10%. rulego was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (go), 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 | rulego | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 156 |
| 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 rulego if
- You want the rulego 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 rulego 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 rulego
RuleGo is a Go language rule engine framework for component orchestration. It helps build loosely coupled systems that can respond to changes in business requirements in real time. The project lives in the Go ecosystem and uses the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full rulego overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or rulego more popular?
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars and rulego has 1,605. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and rulego free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and rulego under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and rulego?
gitleaks is written in Go and rulego 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 rulego?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,364 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rulego if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.