head to head · open source
lighthouse vs aircrack-ng
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars, 9,765 forks, 470 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aircrack-ng has 7,654 stars, 1,375 forks, 462 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. lighthouse leads on adoption by 302% (30,785 vs 7,654 stars). lighthouse is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; aircrack-ng is written in C under GPL-2.0. lighthouse has attracted 32% as many forks as stars, aircrack-ng 18%. lighthouse was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (audit), 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
| lighthouse | aircrack-ng | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lighthouse if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick aircrack-ng if
- You want the aircrack-ng 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 aircrack-ng fits your workflow better
About lighthouse
Lighthouse is an open source, automated auditing tool for web applications and web pages. It analyzes a target URL and collects modern performance metrics alongside insights into developer best practices, producing a structured report that scores and explains what it finds. The project lives in the JavaScript ecosystem, is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, and is maintained under the GoogleChrome organization. It has been developed for roughly eleven years and is published to npm as the lighthouse package.
read the full lighthouse overview →
About aircrack-ng
Aircrack ng is a GPL 2.0 licensed suite of WiFi security auditing tools written in C, intended for network auditors, penetration testers, and compliance and risk management teams who assess wireless networks on hardware they control.
read the full aircrack-ng overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lighthouse or aircrack-ng more popular?
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars and aircrack-ng has 7,654. lighthouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are lighthouse and aircrack-ng free?
Both are open source. lighthouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and aircrack-ng under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lighthouse and aircrack-ng?
lighthouse is written in JavaScript and aircrack-ng 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, lighthouse or aircrack-ng?
Choose lighthouse if you want the larger community (30,785 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose aircrack-ng if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.