head to head · open source
lynis vs ossec-hids
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars, 1,645 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. ossec-hids has 5,070 stars, 1,074 forks, 125 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lynis leads on adoption by 228% (16,611 vs 5,070 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; ossec-hids is written in C under GPL-2.0. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ossec-hids 21%. ossec-hids was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (compliance, pci-dss), 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 | ossec-hids | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 5.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Shell | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 ossec-hids if
- You want the ossec-hids feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and ossec-hids 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 ossec-hids
OSSEC v4.3.0 Information about OSSEC OSSEC is a full platform to monitor and control your systems. It mixes together all the aspects of HIDS (host based intrusion detection), log monitoring and SIM/SIEM together in a simple, powerful and open source solution. Visit our website for the latest information. www.ossec.net Current Releases The current stable releases are available on the ossec website. Releases can be downloaded from: Downloads Release documentation is available at: docs Development The development version is hosted on GitHub and just a simple git clone away. Screenshots File Integrity Monitoring…
read the full ossec-hids overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or ossec-hids more popular?
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars and ossec-hids has 5,070. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and ossec-hids free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and ossec-hids under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and ossec-hids?
lynis is written in Shell and ossec-hids in C. 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 ossec-hids?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,611 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose ossec-hids if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.