head to head · open source
lynis vs SnapOtter
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars, 1,645 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. SnapOtter has 2,929 stars, 174 forks, 208 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lynis leads on adoption by 467% (16,611 vs 2,929 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; SnapOtter is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, SnapOtter 6%. SnapOtter 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 | SnapOtter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Shell | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 174 |
| 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 SnapOtter if
- You want the SnapOtter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and SnapOtter 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 SnapOtter
Open source, self hosted file processing infrastructure. Convert, compress, OCR, transcribe, strip metadata, and run local AI across image, video, audio, PDF, and documents, through a UI, REST API, and pipelines. Your files never leave your network. The one self hosted stack that replaces CloudConvert, Smallpdf, TinyPNG, TinyWow, and Otter.ai. 200+ tools across five modalities, on hardware you own. Stirling PDF stops at PDFs. ConvertX stops at conversions. SnapOtter runs all five, and your files never leave your server. Edit images, convert video, transcribe audio, repair PDFs, batch your files: one Docker…
read the full SnapOtter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or SnapOtter more popular?
lynis has 16,611 GitHub stars and SnapOtter has 2,929. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and SnapOtter free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and SnapOtter under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and SnapOtter?
lynis is written in Shell and SnapOtter in TypeScript. 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 SnapOtter?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,611 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose SnapOtter if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.