head to head · open source
lighthouse vs prowler
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars, 9,765 forks, 470 open issues and last shipped yesterday. prowler has 14,830 stars, 2,389 forks, 371 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lighthouse leads on adoption by 108% (30,785 vs 14,830 stars). lighthouse is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; prowler is written in Python under Apache-2.0. lighthouse has attracted 32% as many forks as stars, prowler 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 | prowler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 15K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| 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 prowler if
- You want the prowler 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 prowler 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 prowler
Prowler is an Apache 2.0, Python based open source cloud security platform that automates security and compliance assessments across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud through thousands of ready to use checks, aimed at cloud security, compliance, and DevSecOps teams that need continuous posture management without a commercial licence.
read the full prowler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lighthouse or prowler more popular?
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars and prowler has 14,830. lighthouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are lighthouse and prowler free?
Both are open source. lighthouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and prowler under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lighthouse and prowler?
lighthouse is written in JavaScript and prowler 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 prowler?
Choose lighthouse if you want the larger community (30,785 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose prowler if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.