head to head · open source
lynis vs copacetic
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. copacetic has 1,708 stars, 124 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. lynis leads on adoption by 858% (16,355 vs 1,708 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; copacetic is written in Go under Apache-2.0. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, copacetic 7%. 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 | copacetic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Shell | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 124 |
| 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 copacetic if
- You want the copacetic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and copacetic 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 copacetic
Copa is a CLI tool written in Go and based on buildkit that directly patches container images without a full rebuild. It lives in the container security and DevSecOps ecosystem, where it works with Docker images and vulnerability scan reports from tools such as Trivy.
read the full copacetic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or copacetic more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and copacetic has 1,708. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and copacetic free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and copacetic under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and copacetic?
lynis is written in Shell and copacetic 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, lynis or copacetic?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose copacetic if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.