head to head · open source
portainer vs kics
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kics has 2,730 stars, 385 forks, 312 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 1,320% (38,767 vs 2,730 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; kics is written in Open Policy Agent under Apache-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, kics 14%. kics was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| portainer | kics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | Zlib | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Open Policy Agent |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 385 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kics if
- You want the kics feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Open Policy Agent
- You evaluated both and kics fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments. It is provided as is, at no cost, for the convenience of homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware. Portainer Business Edition builds on the same open source base and adds the features, hardening, and commercial support that production and enterprise environments require (RBAC, GitOps, edge management, audit, SSO, and more). Find out more about Portainer Business Edition features Take3 – get 3 free nodes of Portainer…
read the full portainer overview →
About kics
Find security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and infrastructure misconfigurations early in the development cycle of your infrastructure as code with KICS by Checkmarx. KICS stands for K eeping I nfrastructure as C ode S ecure, it is open source and is a must have for any cloud native project. Supported Platforms <a href="
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Cloud Infrastructure Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Cloud Infrastructure Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or kics more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and kics has 2,730. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and kics free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and kics under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and kics?
portainer is written in TypeScript and kics in Open Policy Agent. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, portainer or kics?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose kics if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.