head to head · open source
lesspass vs gokey
lesspass has 6,079 GitHub stars, 360 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. gokey has 2,440 stars, 110 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. lesspass leads on adoption by 149% (6,079 vs 2,440 stars). lesspass is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; gokey is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. lesspass has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, gokey 5%. lesspass 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
| lesspass | gokey | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.1K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-21 | 2026-07-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 360 | ⑂ 110 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lesspass if
- You weight community size — 6.1K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gokey if
- You want the gokey feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gokey fits your workflow better
About lesspass
LessPass LessPass is a stateless password manager. Stop wasting your time synchronizing your encrypted vault. Remember one master password to access your passwords, anywhere, anytime. No sync needed. Try the demo at How to use LessPass Web extensions Install the web extension on Chrome or Firefox. When you need to generate a password, click on the password field on the web site you want to generate a password for. Hit Ctrl + Shift + L or Command + Shift + L on mac to open the web extension. Fill the login and master password and hit Enter . Your password is now copied in the clipboard. Hit esc key and paste the…
read the full lesspass overview →
About gokey
gokey A simple vaultless password manager in Go gokey is a password manager, which does not require a password vault. Instead of storing your passwords in a vault it derives your password on the fly from your master password and supplied realm string (for example, resource URL). This way you do not have to manage, backup or sync your password vault (or trust its management to a third party) as your passwords are available immediately anywhere. example options o by default gokey outputs generated data to stdout P path to master password file which will be used to generate other passwords/keys or to encrypt seed…
read the full gokey overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lesspass or gokey more popular?
lesspass has 6,079 GitHub stars and gokey has 2,440. lesspass has the larger community by that measure.
Are lesspass and gokey free?
Both are open source. lesspass is licensed under GPL-3.0 and gokey under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lesspass and gokey?
lesspass is written in TypeScript and gokey 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, lesspass or gokey?
Choose lesspass if you want the larger community (6,079 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose gokey if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.