head to head · open source
lynis vs polaris
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. polaris has 3,387 stars, 231 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. lynis leads on adoption by 383% (16,355 vs 3,387 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; polaris is written in Go under Apache-2.0. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, polaris 7%. lynis was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | polaris | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Shell | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 231 |
| 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 polaris if
- You want the polaris feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and polaris 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 polaris
Polaris is an open source policy engine for Kubernetes, written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Kubernetes ecosystem and supports cluster auditing, best practice validation, and a dashboard.
read the full polaris overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or polaris more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and polaris has 3,387. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and polaris free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and polaris under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and polaris?
lynis is written in Shell and polaris 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 polaris?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose polaris if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.