head to head · open source
nono vs pipelock
nono has 4,140 GitHub stars, 274 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. pipelock has 886 stars, 101 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped today. nono leads on adoption by 367% (4,140 vs 886 stars). nono is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; pipelock is written in Go under Apache-2.0. nono has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, pipelock 11%. pipelock 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 | pipelock | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.1K | ★ 886 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 274 | ⑂ 101 |
| 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 pipelock if
- You want the pipelock feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pipelock 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 pipelock
Pipelock is an open source AI agent firewall written in Go and licensed Apache 2.0 that sits between AI agents and the network, inspecting mediated HTTP, WebSocket, MCP, and A2A traffic for secret exfiltration, prompt injection, SSRF, tool poisoning, and risky tool call chains, and emitting mediator signed action receipts so a reviewer can verify what the boundary decided from outside the agent runtime.
read the full pipelock overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nono or pipelock more popular?
nono has 4,140 GitHub stars and pipelock has 886. nono has the larger community by that measure.
Are nono and pipelock free?
Both are open source. nono is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pipelock under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nono and pipelock?
nono is written in Rust and pipelock 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, nono or pipelock?
Choose nono if you want the larger community (4,140 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pipelock if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.