head to head · open source
lynis vs openscap
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars, 1,645 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. openscap has 1,837 stars, 457 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. lynis leads on adoption by 804% (16,611 vs 1,837 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; openscap is written in XSLT under LGPL-2.1. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, openscap 25%. openscap 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 | openscap | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | Shell | XSLT |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 457 |
| 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 openscap if
- You want the openscap feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-2.1 license terms
- Your stack matches XSLT
- You evaluated both and openscap 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 openscap
OpenSCAP Open Source Security Compliance Solution About The oscap program is a command line tool that allows users to load, scan, validate, edit, and export SCAP documents. Homepage of the project: www.open scap.org User Manual: OpenSCAP User Manual Compilation, testing and debugging: OpenSCAP Developer Manual For new contributors: How to contribute Contributing We welcome all contributions to the OpenSCAP project. If you would like to contribute, either by fixing existing issues or adding new features, please check out our contribution guide to get started. If you would like to discuss anything, ask questions…
read the full openscap overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or openscap more popular?
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars and openscap has 1,837. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and openscap free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and openscap under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and openscap?
lynis is written in Shell and openscap in XSLT. 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 openscap?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,611 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose openscap if its feature set, stack or LGPL-2.1 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.