head to head · open source
lynis vs tfsec
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. tfsec has 7,038 stars, 558 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. lynis leads on adoption by 132% (16,355 vs 7,038 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; tfsec is written in Go under MIT. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, tfsec 8%. lynis was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (compliance, devops), 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 | tfsec | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 7.0K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-03-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 558 |
| 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 tfsec if
- You want the tfsec feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tfsec 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 tfsec
tfsec is a static analysis security scanner for Terraform code, written in Go and released under the MIT license. It lives in the infrastructure as code and DevSecOps ecosystem, alongside tools such as linters and CI scanners. The project is now part of Trivy, Aqua Security's broader open source security scanner, and its Terraform scanning engine forms the foundation of Trivy's IaC and misconfiguration scanning capabilities. The repository remains available, but engineering attention is directed at Trivy going forward.
read the full tfsec overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or tfsec more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and tfsec has 7,038. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and tfsec free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and tfsec under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and tfsec?
lynis is written in Shell and tfsec 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 tfsec?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose tfsec if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.