head to head · open source
opa vs kyverno
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars, 1,686 forks, 310 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kyverno has 8,168 stars, 1,602 forks, 703 open issues and last shipped today. opa leads on adoption by 50% (12,256 vs 8,168 stars). opa is written in Go under Apache-2.0; kyverno is written in Go under Apache-2.0. opa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, kyverno 20%. kyverno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (compliance), 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
| opa | kyverno | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 8.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick opa if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kyverno if
- You want the kyverno 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 kyverno fits your workflow better
About opa
Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source, general purpose policy engine that enables unified, context aware policy enforcement across the entire stack. It lives in the cloud native ecosystem as a graduated project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation landscape, and it is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license. Policy is expressed declaratively in the Rego language, and the project ships alongside a CLI, an HTTP REST API, a Go SDK, and editor tooling rather than as a single binary alone. The repository has been active for roughly eleven years, with 12,234 stars, 1,679 forks, and a last push dated 15 Septe…
About kyverno
Kyverno is a Kubernetes native policy engine that lets platform engineering teams define security, compliance, automation, and governance rules as policy as code, using the Kubernetes tools they already run rather than a separate policy language.
read the full kyverno overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is opa or kyverno more popular?
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars and kyverno has 8,168. opa has the larger community by that measure.
Are opa and kyverno free?
Both are open source. opa is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kyverno under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between opa and kyverno?
opa is written in Go and kyverno 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, opa or kyverno?
Choose opa if you want the larger community (12,256 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kyverno if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.