head to head · open source
lynis vs appshark
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. appshark has 1,751 stars, 181 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. lynis leads on adoption by 834% (16,355 vs 1,751 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; appshark is written in Kotlin under Apache-2.0. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, appshark 10%. lynis was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (compliance), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | appshark | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Shell | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 181 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lynis if
- You weight community size — 16K 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 appshark if
- You want the appshark feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and appshark fits your workflow better
About lynis
Lynis is an agentless, GPL 3.0 security auditing and hardening tool that runs on the UNIX based system itself, built for system administrators, auditors, security officers, and penetration testers who need to assess security defenses and test compliance against standards such as ISO27001, PCI DSS, and HIPAA.
read the full lynis overview →
About appshark
AppShark is static taint analysis platform for Android app. It scans APK file for vulnerability and compliance problem. It lives in Android security and compliance ecosystem. Analysis output reports app package, permissions, components, deep link, HTTP API, JS bridge, and native interface data. It finds risk paths by taint analysis. It is written in Kotlin and licensed under Apache 2.0.
read the full appshark overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or appshark more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and appshark has 1,751. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and appshark free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and appshark under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and appshark?
lynis is written in Shell and appshark in Kotlin. 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 appshark?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose appshark if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.