head to head · open source
kyverno vs ossec-hids
kyverno has 8,316 GitHub stars, 1,696 forks, 703 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ossec-hids has 5,070 stars, 1,074 forks, 125 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. kyverno leads on adoption by 64% (8,316 vs 5,070 stars). kyverno is written in Go under Apache-2.0; ossec-hids is written in C under GPL-2.0. kyverno has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, ossec-hids 21%. kyverno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (compliance, security), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| kyverno | ossec-hids | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.3K | ★ 5.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kyverno if
- You weight community size — 8.3K 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 ossec-hids if
- You want the ossec-hids feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and ossec-hids fits your workflow better
About kyverno
Kyverno Cloud Native Policy Management 🎉 📑 Table of Contents About Kyverno Non Goals Documentation Demos & Tutorials Popular Use Cases Explore the Policy Library Getting Help Contributing Software Bill of Materials Contributors License About Kyverno Kyverno is a Kubernetes native policy engine designed for platform engineering teams. It enables security, compliance, automation, and governance through policy as code. Kyverno can: Validate, mutate, generate, and clean up resources using Kubernetes admission controls and background scans. Verify container image signatures for supply chain security. Operate with…
read the full kyverno overview →
About ossec-hids
OSSEC v4.3.0 Information about OSSEC OSSEC is a full platform to monitor and control your systems. It mixes together all the aspects of HIDS (host based intrusion detection), log monitoring and SIM/SIEM together in a simple, powerful and open source solution. Visit our website for the latest information. www.ossec.net Current Releases The current stable releases are available on the ossec website. Releases can be downloaded from: Downloads Release documentation is available at: docs Development The development version is hosted on GitHub and just a simple git clone away. Screenshots File Integrity Monitoring…
read the full ossec-hids overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Compliance & Risk Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Compliance & Risk Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is kyverno or ossec-hids more popular?
kyverno has 8,316 GitHub stars and ossec-hids has 5,070. kyverno has the larger community by that measure.
Are kyverno and ossec-hids free?
Both are open source. kyverno is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ossec-hids under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kyverno and ossec-hids?
kyverno is written in Go and ossec-hids in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, kyverno or ossec-hids?
Choose kyverno if you want the larger community (8,316 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ossec-hids if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.