head to head · open source
lynis vs rudder
lynis has 16,356 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rudder has 712 stars, 91 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lynis leads on adoption by 2,197% (16,356 vs 712 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; rudder is written in Scala under GPL-3.0. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, rudder 13%. rudder was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (auditing, compliance, devops, 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 | rudder | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 712 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Shell | Scala |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 91 |
| 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 rudder if
- You want the rudder feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Scala
- You evaluated both and rudder 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 rudder
Infrastructure automation for security posture Website • Docs • Chat • Videos • Bug tracker X (Twitter) • Bluesky • Mastodon • LinkedIn What is Rudder? Rudder is a system infrastructure automation platform, dedicated to empowering IT operational teams to ensure and improve their security posture and fostering collaboration in Security Operations (SecOps). Features Security posture management: Automate critical IT operations to fortify infrastructure security: Automated systems inventory Patch management Vulnerability management System hardening and security standards compliance Configuration management: Streamlin…
read the full rudder overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or rudder more popular?
lynis has 16,356 GitHub stars and rudder has 712. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and rudder free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and rudder under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and rudder?
lynis is written in Shell and rudder in Scala. 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 rudder?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,356 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose rudder if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.