head to head · open source
lynis vs aircrack-ng
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars, 1,645 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. aircrack-ng has 7,850 stars, 1,402 forks, 462 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. lynis leads on adoption by 112% (16,611 vs 7,850 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; aircrack-ng is written in C under GPL-2.0. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, aircrack-ng 18%. aircrack-ng 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
| lynis | aircrack-ng | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 7.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Shell | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lynis if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- 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 lynis
[Documentation] [Documentation]: Do you like this software? Star the project and become a stargazer. lynis Lynis Security auditing and hardening tool, for UNIX based systems. Lynis is a security auditing tool for systems based on UNIX like Linux, macOS, BSD, and others. It performs an in depth security scan and runs on the system itself. The primary goal is to test security defenses and provide tips for further system hardening . It will also scan for general system information, vulnerable software packages, and possible configuration issues. Lynis was commonly used by system administrators and auditors to…
read the full lynis overview →
About aircrack-ng
Aircrack ng Badges GitHub CI Others Repository versions Description Aircrack ng is a complete suite of tools to assess WiFi network security. It focuses on different areas of WiFi security: Monitoring: Packet capture and export of data to text files for further processing by third party tools. Attacking: Replay attacks, deauthentication, fake access points and others via packet injection. Testing: Checking WiFi cards and driver capabilities (capture and injection). Cracking: WEP and WPA PSK (WPA 1 and 2). All tools are command line which allows for heavy scripting. A lot of GUIs have taken advantage of this…
read the full aircrack-ng overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or aircrack-ng more popular?
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars and aircrack-ng has 7,850. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and aircrack-ng free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and aircrack-ng under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and aircrack-ng?
lynis is written in Shell 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, lynis or aircrack-ng?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,611 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose aircrack-ng if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.