head to head · open source
lynis vs Audit.NET
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Audit.NET has 2,651 stars, 328 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. lynis leads on adoption by 517% (16,355 vs 2,651 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; Audit.NET is written in C# under MIT. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Audit.NET 12%. lynis 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 | Audit.NET | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 328 |
| 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 Audit.NET if
- You want the Audit.NET feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and Audit.NET 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 Audit.NET
Audit.NET is an extensible framework for auditing executing operations in .NET and .NET Core. It lives in the Microsoft .NET ecosystem, where applications need a way to record what happened during runtime procedures and to preserve evidence for later reconstruction and examination. The project is written in C and is distributed under the MIT license.
read the full Audit.NET overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or Audit.NET more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and Audit.NET has 2,651. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and Audit.NET free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Audit.NET under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and Audit.NET?
lynis is written in Shell and Audit.NET 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 Audit.NET?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Audit.NET if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.