head to head · open source
lynis vs wallace-cli
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars, 1,635 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. wallace-cli has 643 stars, 15 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. lynis leads on adoption by 2,444% (16,355 vs 643 stars). lynis is written in Shell under GPL-3.0; wallace-cli is written in TypeScript under MIT. lynis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, wallace-cli 2%. 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| lynis | wallace-cli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 643 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 15 |
| 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 wallace-cli if
- You want the wallace-cli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and wallace-cli 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 wallace-cli
Wallace CLI is a command line tool that prints pretty CSS analytics — metrics, statistics and complexity data about a stylesheet — directly in the terminal, and it is aimed at front end developers, auditors and teams who want to inspect the health of their CSS without leaving the shell.
read the full wallace-cli overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Compliance & Risk Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Compliance & Risk Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is lynis or wallace-cli more popular?
lynis has 16,355 GitHub stars and wallace-cli has 643. lynis has the larger community by that measure.
Are lynis and wallace-cli free?
Both are open source. lynis is licensed under GPL-3.0 and wallace-cli under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lynis and wallace-cli?
lynis is written in Shell and wallace-cli 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 wallace-cli?
Choose lynis if you want the larger community (16,355 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose wallace-cli if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.