head to head · open source
lynis vs HardeningKitty
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. HardeningKitty has 1,838 stars, 213 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. lynis leads on adoption by 790% (16,355 vs 1,838 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; HardeningKitty is written in PowerShell under MIT. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, HardeningKitty 12%. lynis was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hardening), 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 | HardeningKitty | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | PowerShell |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-07-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 213 |
| 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 HardeningKitty if
- You want the HardeningKitty feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PowerShell
- You evaluated both and HardeningKitty 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 HardeningKitty
HardeningKitty is a PowerShell security tool from the Windows Hardening Project by Michael Schneider. It lives in the Windows ecosystem and supports audit, hardening, registry, checklist, and defense work. The stable version is signed with the code signing certificate of scip AG, and pull requests are sent to the development repository.
read the full HardeningKitty overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or HardeningKitty more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and HardeningKitty has 1,838. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and HardeningKitty free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and HardeningKitty under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and HardeningKitty?
lynis is written in Shell and HardeningKitty in PowerShell. 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 HardeningKitty?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose HardeningKitty if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.