head to head · open source
casbin vs pwd.sh
casbin has 20,482 GitHub stars, 1,767 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. pwd.sh has 1,564 stars, 132 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. casbin leads on adoption by 1,210% (20,482 vs 1,564 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 8%. 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 | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 132 |
| 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 ==== News : still worry about how to write the correct Apache Casbin policy? Apache Casbin online editor is coming to help! Try it at: Apache Casbin is a powerful and efficient open source access control library for Golang projects. It provides support for enforcing authorization based on various access control models. All the languages supported by Apache Casbin: Table of contents Supported models How it works? Features Installation Documentation Online editor Tutorials Get started Policy management Policy persistence Policy consistence between multiple nodes Role manager Benchmarks Examples…
read the full casbin overview →
About pwd.sh
pwd.sh is a Bash script to manage text secrets, such as passwords, using GnuPG. Each secret is saved to a randomly named file in a directory. An encrypted index maps usernames to secrets contained in files. Both the index and files can be decrypted directly with GnuPG without pwd.sh. Install Download from Releases, or to use the latest version, clone the repository: Or download the script directly: Use Run the script interactively using ./pwd.sh or symlink to a directory in PATH : w write (create) a secret r read (access) a secret l list secret names and paths s generate a random secret u generate a random…
read the full pwd.sh overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is casbin or pwd.sh more popular?
casbin has 20,482 GitHub stars and pwd.sh has 1,564. 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 (20,482 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.