head to head · open source
gokey vs pwd.sh
gokey has 2,436 GitHub stars, 109 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. pwd.sh has 1,563 stars, 136 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 29 days ago. gokey leads on adoption by 56% (2,436 vs 1,563 stars). gokey is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause; pwd.sh is written in Shell under MIT. gokey has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, pwd.sh 9%. pwd.sh was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (password-manager), 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
| gokey | pwd.sh | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 2.4K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-07-10 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 109 | ⑂ 136 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gokey if
- You weight community size — 2.4K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pwd.sh if
- You want the pwd.sh feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and pwd.sh fits your workflow better
About gokey
gokey is a vaultless password and key generator written in Go that derives passwords and cryptographic private keys on demand from a master password or a seed file instead of storing them in a vault, aimed at developers and system administrators who want deterministic credentials available anywhere without managing, backing up, or syncing a password store.
read the full gokey overview →
About pwd.sh
pwd.sh is a Bash script that manages text secrets such as passwords by storing each one in a GnuPG symmetric encrypted file, and it is for people who work in a terminal and prefer to keep their own encrypted store rather than hand it to a hosted password service.
read the full pwd.sh overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gokey or pwd.sh more popular?
gokey has 2,436 GitHub stars and pwd.sh has 1,563. gokey has the larger community by that measure.
Are gokey and pwd.sh free?
Both are open source. gokey is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and pwd.sh under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gokey and pwd.sh?
gokey is written in Go and pwd.sh in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gokey or pwd.sh?
Choose gokey if you want the larger community (2,436 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose pwd.sh if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.