head to head · open source
nono vs hol-guard
nono has 4,140 GitHub stars, 274 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. hol-guard has 630 stars, 76 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped today. nono leads on adoption by 557% (4,140 vs 630 stars). nono is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; hol-guard is written in Python under Apache-2.0. nono has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, hol-guard 12%. hol-guard was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (agent-security, ai-agent-security, ai-agents, ai-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
| nono | hol-guard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.1K | ★ 630 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 274 | ⑂ 76 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nono if
- You weight community size — 4.1K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick hol-guard if
- You want the hol-guard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and hol-guard fits your workflow better
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.
About hol-guard
HOL Guard is an open source, local first antivirus for AI agents that reviews shell commands, file access, package installs, and MCP tool calls before they run, built for developers and platform security teams running coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Gemini CLI.
read the full hol-guard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nono or hol-guard more popular?
nono has 4,140 GitHub stars and hol-guard has 630. nono has the larger community by that measure.
Are nono and hol-guard free?
Both are open source. nono is licensed under Apache-2.0 and hol-guard under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nono and hol-guard?
nono is written in Rust and hol-guard in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, nono or hol-guard?
Choose nono if you want the larger community (4,140 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose hol-guard if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.