head to head · open source
casbin vs pwd.sh
casbin has 20,400 GitHub stars, 1,757 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. pwd.sh has 1,563 stars, 136 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. casbin leads on adoption by 1,205% (20,400 vs 1,563 stars). casbin is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pwd.sh is written in Shell under MIT. casbin has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, pwd.sh 9%. casbin was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| casbin | pwd.sh | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-11 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 136 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick casbin if
- You weight community size — 20K 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 pwd.sh if
- You want the pwd.sh feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and pwd.sh fits your workflow better
About casbin
Apache Casbin is an Apache licensed authorization library for Go that helps developers enforce access control models such as ACL, RBAC, and ABAC inside their own applications rather than in a separate service.
read the full casbin overview →
About pwd.sh
pwd.sh is a Bash script that manages text secrets such as passwords by storing each one in a GnuPG symmetric encrypted file, and it is for people who work in a terminal and prefer to keep their own encrypted store rather than hand it to a hosted password service.
read the full pwd.sh overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is casbin or pwd.sh more popular?
casbin has 20,400 GitHub stars and pwd.sh has 1,563. casbin has the larger community by that measure.
Are casbin and pwd.sh free?
Both are open source. casbin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pwd.sh under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between casbin and pwd.sh?
casbin is written in Go and pwd.sh in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, casbin or pwd.sh?
Choose casbin if you want the larger community (20,400 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pwd.sh if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.