head to head · open source
gitleaks vs werf
gitleaks has 30,603 GitHub stars, 2,330 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. werf has 4,739 stars, 243 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gitleaks leads on adoption by 546% (30,603 vs 4,739 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; werf is written in Go under Apache-2.0. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, werf 5%. werf 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, golang), 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 | werf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 243 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gitleaks if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick werf if
- You want the werf 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 werf fits your workflow better
About gitleaks
Gitleaks [!WARNING] Gitleaks is feature complete. I'm not merging new features into Gitleaks. Future releases will be security patches only. I'm shifting my focus to Betterleaks [license]: ./LICENSE [badge license]: [go docs badge]: [go docs]: [badge build]: [build]: [go report card badge]: [go report card]: [dockerhub]: [dockerhub badge]: [gitleaks action]: [gitleaks badge]: [![GitHub Action Test][badge build]][build] [![Docker Hub][dockerhub badge]][dockerhub] [![Gitleaks Action][gitleaks badge]][gitleaks action] [![GoDoc][go docs badge]][go docs] [![GoReportCard][go report card badge]][go report card]…
read the full gitleaks overview →
About werf
werf is a CNCF Sandbox CLI tool to implement full cycle CI/CD to Kubernetes easily. werf integrates into your CI system and leverages familiar and reliable technologies, such as Git, Dockerfile, Helm, and Buildah. What makes werf special: Complete application lifecycle management : build and publish container images, test, deploy an application to Kubernetes, distribute release artifacts and clean up the container registry. Ease of use : use Dockerfiles and Helm chart for configuration and let werf handle all the rest. Advanced features : automatic build caching and content based tagging, enhanced resource…
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or werf more popular?
gitleaks has 30,603 GitHub stars and werf has 4,739. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and werf free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and werf under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and werf?
gitleaks is written in Go and werf 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 werf?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (30,603 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose werf if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.