head to head · open source
lynis vs databunker
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. databunker has 1,484 stars, 99 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. lynis leads on adoption by 1,002% (16,355 vs 1,484 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; databunker is written in Go under MIT. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, databunker 7%. lynis was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (compliance, gdpr), 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 | databunker | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-07-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 99 |
| 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 databunker if
- You want the databunker feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and databunker 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 databunker
Databunker is a self hosted, Go based vault for storing and tokenizing sensitive personal records, including PII, PHI, and KYC data. It belongs to the open source compliance and data protection ecosystem, and it is licensed under MIT. The project is described as GDPR compliant, with topics covering anonymization, encryption, CCPA, GDPR, legaltech, and application server use.
read the full databunker overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or databunker more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and databunker has 1,484. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and databunker free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and databunker under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and databunker?
lynis is written in Shell and databunker 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 databunker?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose databunker if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.