head to head · open source
GrowthBook vs Cerbos
GrowthBook has 8,376 GitHub stars, 849 forks, 793 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Cerbos has 4,588 stars, 211 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped yesterday. GrowthBook leads on adoption by 83% (8,376 vs 4,588 stars). GrowthBook is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Cerbos is written in Go under Apache-2.0. GrowthBook has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Cerbos 5%. GrowthBook 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| GrowthBook | Cerbos | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.4K | ★ 4.6K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 849 | ⑂ 211 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick GrowthBook if
- You weight community size — 8.4K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Cerbos if
- You want the Cerbos 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 Cerbos fits your workflow better
About GrowthBook
GrowthBook is an open source platform for feature flags, A/B experimentation, and product analytics that product, data, and platform teams can either consume through a hosted cloud account or run entirely on their own infrastructure.
read the full GrowthBook overview →
About Cerbos
Cerbos is an open core authorization management platform written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license. It provides an authorization layer for applications, gateways, workloads, and AI agents, and it operates as a Policy Decision Point that evaluates access rules and returns decisions. The project lives in the Go and cloud native application security ecosystem, with Kubernetes, serverless, and edge deployment support reflected in its facts.
read the full Cerbos overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Application Security projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Application Security field.
Frequently asked questions
Is GrowthBook or Cerbos more popular?
GrowthBook has 8,376 GitHub stars and Cerbos has 4,588. GrowthBook has the larger community by that measure.
Are GrowthBook and Cerbos free?
Both are open source. GrowthBook has no licence declared in this registry, and Cerbos is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between GrowthBook and Cerbos?
GrowthBook is written in TypeScript and Cerbos 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, GrowthBook or Cerbos?
Choose GrowthBook if you want the larger community (8,376 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Cerbos if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.