head to head · open source
lighthouse vs tfsec
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars, 9,765 forks, 470 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tfsec has 7,038 stars, 558 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. lighthouse leads on adoption by 337% (30,785 vs 7,038 stars). lighthouse is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; tfsec is written in Go under MIT. lighthouse has attracted 32% as many forks as stars, tfsec 8%. 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 | tfsec | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 7.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-03-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 558 |
| 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 tfsec if
- You want the tfsec feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tfsec 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 tfsec
tfsec is a static analysis security scanner for Terraform code, written in Go and released under the MIT license. It lives in the infrastructure as code and DevSecOps ecosystem, alongside tools such as linters and CI scanners. The project is now part of Trivy, Aqua Security's broader open source security scanner, and its Terraform scanning engine forms the foundation of Trivy's IaC and misconfiguration scanning capabilities. The repository remains available, but engineering attention is directed at Trivy going forward.
read the full tfsec overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lighthouse or tfsec more popular?
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars and tfsec has 7,038. lighthouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are lighthouse and tfsec free?
Both are open source. lighthouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tfsec under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lighthouse and tfsec?
lighthouse is written in JavaScript and tfsec 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, lighthouse or tfsec?
Choose lighthouse if you want the larger community (30,785 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tfsec if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.