head to head · open source
jenkins vs kics
jenkins has 26,719 GitHub stars, 9,819 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kics has 2,730 stars, 385 forks, 312 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jenkins leads on adoption by 879% (26,719 vs 2,730 stars). jenkins is written in Java under MIT; kics is written in Open Policy Agent under Apache-2.0. jenkins has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, kics 14%. kics was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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
| jenkins | kics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Open Policy Agent |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 385 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick jenkins if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kics if
- You want the kics feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Open Policy Agent
- You evaluated both and kics fits your workflow better
About jenkins
Table of Contents About What to Use Jenkins for and When to Use It Downloads Getting Started (Development) Source Contributing to Jenkins News and Website Governance Adopters License About In a nutshell, Jenkins is the leading open source automation server. Built with Java, it provides over 2,000 plugins to support automating virtually anything, so that humans can spend their time doing things machines cannot. What to Use Jenkins for and When to Use It Use Jenkins to automate your development workflow, so you can focus on work that matters most. Jenkins is commonly used for: Building projects Running tests to…
read the full jenkins overview →
About kics
Find security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and infrastructure misconfigurations early in the development cycle of your infrastructure as code with KICS by Checkmarx. KICS stands for K eeping I nfrastructure as C ode S ecure, it is open source and is a must have for any cloud native project. Supported Platforms <a href="
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Frequently asked questions
Is jenkins or kics more popular?
jenkins has 26,719 GitHub stars and kics has 2,730. jenkins has the larger community by that measure.
Are jenkins and kics free?
Both are open source. jenkins is licensed under MIT and kics under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jenkins and kics?
jenkins is written in Java and kics in Open Policy Agent. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, jenkins or kics?
Choose jenkins if you want the larger community (26,719 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kics if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.