head to head · open source
lighthouse vs checkov
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars, 9,765 forks, 470 open issues and last shipped yesterday. checkov has 9,010 stars, 1,412 forks, 170 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lighthouse leads on adoption by 242% (30,785 vs 9,010 stars). lighthouse is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; checkov is written in Python under Apache-2.0. lighthouse has attracted 32% as many forks as stars, checkov 16%. lighthouse was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | checkov | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 9.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| 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 checkov if
- You want the checkov feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and checkov 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 checkov
Checkov is an open source static code analysis and software composition analysis tool that scans infrastructure as code, container images and open source packages for security and compliance misconfigurations during the build, and it is aimed at developers, DevOps engineers and security teams who want those checks to run before anything is deployed to AWS, Azure or Google Cloud.
read the full checkov overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lighthouse or checkov more popular?
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars and checkov has 9,010. lighthouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are lighthouse and checkov free?
Both are open source. lighthouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and checkov under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lighthouse and checkov?
lighthouse is written in JavaScript and checkov in Python. 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 checkov?
Choose lighthouse if you want the larger community (30,785 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose checkov if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.