head to head · open source
lynis vs SnapOtter
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. SnapOtter has 2,685 stars, 136 forks, 208 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lynis leads on adoption by 509% (16,355 vs 2,685 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 5%. 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 | ★ 16K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Shell | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 136 |
| 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 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
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 SnapOtter
SnapOtter is an open source, self hosted file processing tool in TypeScript under AGPL 3.0. It provides a UI, REST API, and pipelines for conversion, compression, editing, OCR, transcription, metadata stripping, and local AI across images, video, audio, PDFs, and documents. It lives in the Docker based self hosted software ecosystem, where teams process media and documents on owned hardware instead of external services.
read the full SnapOtter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or SnapOtter more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and SnapOtter has 2,685. 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 (16,355 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.