head to head · open source
opa vs tfsec
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars, 1,686 forks, 310 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tfsec has 7,038 stars, 558 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. opa leads on adoption by 74% (12,256 vs 7,038 stars). opa is written in Go under Apache-2.0; tfsec is written in Go under MIT. opa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, tfsec 8%. opa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (compliance), 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
| opa | tfsec | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 7.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-03-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 558 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick opa if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- 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 opa
Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source, general purpose policy engine that enables unified, context aware policy enforcement across the entire stack. It lives in the cloud native ecosystem as a graduated project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation landscape, and it is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license. Policy is expressed declaratively in the Rego language, and the project ships alongside a CLI, an HTTP REST API, a Go SDK, and editor tooling rather than as a single binary alone. The repository has been active for roughly eleven years, with 12,234 stars, 1,679 forks, and a last push dated 15 Septe…
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 opa or tfsec more popular?
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars and tfsec has 7,038. opa has the larger community by that measure.
Are opa and tfsec free?
Both are open source. opa is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tfsec under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between opa and tfsec?
opa is written in Go 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, opa or tfsec?
Choose opa if you want the larger community (12,256 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tfsec if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.