head to head · open source
lynis vs greenlight
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars, 1,645 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. greenlight has 2,458 stars, 148 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. lynis leads on adoption by 576% (16,611 vs 2,458 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; greenlight is written in Go under MIT. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, greenlight 6%. 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 | greenlight | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-08-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 148 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lynis if
- You weight community size — 17K 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 greenlight if
- You want the greenlight feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and greenlight fits your workflow better
About lynis
[Documentation] [Documentation]: Do you like this software? Star the project and become a stargazer. lynis Lynis Security auditing and hardening tool, for UNIX based systems. Lynis is a security auditing tool for systems based on UNIX like Linux, macOS, BSD, and others. It performs an in depth security scan and runs on the system itself. The primary goal is to test security defenses and provide tips for further system hardening . It will also scan for general system information, vulnerable software packages, and possible configuration issues. Lynis was commonly used by system administrators and auditors to…
read the full lynis overview →
About greenlight
greenlight Know before you submit. Pre submission compliance scanner for the Apple App Store and Google Play. Greenlight reads your app (source code, privacy manifests, Android manifests and Gradle builds, IPA binaries, App Store Connect metadata) and checks it against Apple's Review Guidelines and Google Play's Developer Program Policies. Every finding cites the rule it comes from. No account, no uploads, no network. A full preflight on a mid size project finishes in single digit milliseconds. A static scan can only prove a flow exists . greenlight verify proves it works : it runs your account deletion, restore…
read the full greenlight overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or greenlight more popular?
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars and greenlight has 2,458. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and greenlight free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and greenlight under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and greenlight?
lynis is written in Shell and greenlight 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 greenlight?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,611 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose greenlight if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.