head to head · open source
prowler vs rundeck
prowler has 14,830 GitHub stars, 2,389 forks, 371 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rundeck has 6,301 stars, 987 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped yesterday. prowler leads on adoption by 135% (14,830 vs 6,301 stars). prowler is written in Python under Apache-2.0; rundeck is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0. prowler has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, rundeck 16%. rundeck 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.
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Side by side
| prowler | rundeck | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 6.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Groovy |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 987 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick prowler if
- You weight community size — 15K 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 rundeck if
- You want the rundeck feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You evaluated both and rundeck fits your workflow better
About prowler
Prowler is an Apache 2.0, Python based open source cloud security platform that automates security and compliance assessments across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud through thousands of ready to use checks, aimed at cloud security, compliance, and DevSecOps teams that need continuous posture management without a commercial licence.
read the full prowler overview →
About rundeck
Rundeck is an open source runbook automation service maintained by PagerDuty, distributed under the Apache License 2.0 and published from the rundeck.org homepage. It provides a web console, command line tools, and a WebAPI, and its stated purpose is to enable self service operations by giving specific users access to existing tools, services, and scripts. The repository is 16 years old and lives in the DevOps and operations tooling ecosystem, alongside topics such as ansible, automation, deployment, audit, ops, and devops tools.
read the full rundeck overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is prowler or rundeck more popular?
prowler has 14,830 GitHub stars and rundeck has 6,301. prowler has the larger community by that measure.
Are prowler and rundeck free?
Both are open source. prowler is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rundeck under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between prowler and rundeck?
prowler is written in Python and rundeck in Groovy. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, prowler or rundeck?
Choose prowler if you want the larger community (14,830 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rundeck if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.