head to head · open source
lighthouse vs tfsec
lighthouse has 31,005 GitHub stars, 9,785 forks, 470 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. tfsec has 7,059 stars, 560 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. lighthouse leads on adoption by 339% (31,005 vs 7,059 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 | ★ 7.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-03-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 560 |
| 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 Lighthouse analyzes web apps and web pages, collecting modern performance metrics and insights on developer best practices. Using Lighthouse Using Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools Using the Chrome extension Using the Node CLI CLI options Using the Node module Viewing a report Online Viewer Docs & Recipes Developing Lighthouse Setup Run Tests Docs Associated Products and Projects Lighthouse Integrations in Web Perf services Lighthouse Integrations in non Web Perf services Plugins Related projects FAQ How does Lighthouse work? Can I configure the lighthouse run? How does Lighthouse use network throttling…
read the full lighthouse overview →
About tfsec
📣 tfsec to Trivy Migration As part of our goal to provide a comprehensive open source security solution for all, we have been consolidating all of our scanning related efforts in one place, and that is Trivy. Over the past year, tfsec has laid the foundations to Trivy's IaC & misconfigurations scanning capabilities, including Terraform scanning, which has been natively supported in Trivy for a long time now. Going forward we want to encourage the tfsec community to transition over to Trivy. Moving to Trivy gives you the same excellent Terraform scanning engine, with some extra benefits: 1. Access to more…
read the full tfsec overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lighthouse or tfsec more popular?
lighthouse has 31,005 GitHub stars and tfsec has 7,059. 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 (31,005 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tfsec if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.