head to head · open source
garak vs nono
garak has 9,308 GitHub stars, 1,294 forks, 429 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. nono has 4,140 stars, 274 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. garak leads on adoption by 125% (9,308 vs 4,140 stars). garak is written in Python under Apache-2.0; nono is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. garak has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, nono 7%. nono was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (llm-security), 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
| garak | nono | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.3K | ★ 4.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 274 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick garak if
- You weight community size — 9.3K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nono if
- You want the nono feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and nono fits your workflow better
About garak
garak is a free, Apache 2.0 command line vulnerability scanner for large language models that probes generative AI systems for hallucination, data leakage, prompt injection, misinformation, toxicity generation, and jailbreaks, and it is aimed at security engineers, red teamers, and AI developers who need to test the models they ship.
read the full garak overview →
About nono
nono is a Rust project for secure multiplexed execution paths for AI agents. It lives in AI security and privacy. It is built by the team that brought Sigstore. It aims to run agents with zero trust, zero setup, and zero latency.
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Frequently asked questions
Is garak or nono more popular?
garak has 9,308 GitHub stars and nono has 4,140. garak has the larger community by that measure.
Are garak and nono free?
Both are open source. garak is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nono under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between garak and nono?
garak is written in Python and nono in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, garak or nono?
Choose garak if you want the larger community (9,308 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nono if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.