head to head · open source
lynis vs black-hat-rust
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. black-hat-rust has 4,403 stars, 440 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. lynis leads on adoption by 271% (16,355 vs 4,403 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; black-hat-rust is written in Rust under MIT. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, black-hat-rust 10%. 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 | black-hat-rust | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2025-10-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 440 |
| 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 black-hat-rust if
- You want the black-hat-rust feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and black-hat-rust 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 black-hat-rust
Black Hat Rust is an applied offensive security book written in the Rust programming language and published under an MIT licensed repository. The project positions itself as a guide to the reasons and methods behind building offensive tools, rather than a general introduction to Rust or a tutorial for existing tools such as sqlmap and Metasploit. Its topics cover reconnaissance, exploitation, phishing, red team work, bug bounty hunting, auditing, command and control, and implant development.
read the full black-hat-rust overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or black-hat-rust more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and black-hat-rust has 4,403. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and black-hat-rust free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and black-hat-rust under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and black-hat-rust?
lynis is written in Shell and black-hat-rust in Rust. 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 black-hat-rust?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose black-hat-rust if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.