head to head · open source
prowler vs tfsec
prowler has 15,159 GitHub stars, 2,479 forks, 371 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tfsec has 7,059 stars, 560 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. prowler leads on adoption by 115% (15,159 vs 7,059 stars). prowler is written in Python under Apache-2.0; tfsec is written in Go under MIT. prowler has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, tfsec 8%. prowler was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (aws, azure, compliance, devsecops), 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 | tfsec | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 7.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-03-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 560 |
| 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 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 prowler
Prowler is the Open Cloud Security Platform trusted by thousands to automate security and compliance in any cloud environment. With thousands of ready to use checks and compliance frameworks, Prowler delivers real time, customizable monitoring and seamless integrations, making cloud security simple, scalable, and cost effective for organizations of any size. The Agentic Cloud Defender Try Prowler Cloud Join our Prowler community! Description Prowler is the world’s most widely used Open Source Cloud Security Platform that automates security and compliance across any cloud environment . With thousands of ready to…
read the full prowler overview →
About tfsec
📣 tfsec to Trivy Migration As part of our goal to provide a comprehensive open source security solution for all, we have been consolidating all of our scanning related efforts in one place, and that is Trivy. Over the past year, tfsec has laid the foundations to Trivy's IaC & misconfigurations scanning capabilities, including Terraform scanning, which has been natively supported in Trivy for a long time now. Going forward we want to encourage the tfsec community to transition over to Trivy. Moving to Trivy gives you the same excellent Terraform scanning engine, with some extra benefits: 1. Access to more…
read the full tfsec overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is prowler or tfsec more popular?
prowler has 15,159 GitHub stars and tfsec has 7,059. prowler has the larger community by that measure.
Are prowler and tfsec free?
Both are open source. prowler is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tfsec under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between prowler and tfsec?
prowler is written in Python 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, prowler or tfsec?
Choose prowler if you want the larger community (15,159 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tfsec if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.