head to head · open source
rundeck vs Harden-Windows-Security
rundeck has 6,304 GitHub stars, 987 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Harden-Windows-Security has 4,746 stars, 337 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rundeck leads on adoption by 33% (6,304 vs 4,746 stars). rundeck is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0; Harden-Windows-Security is written in C# under MIT. rundeck has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, Harden-Windows-Security 7%. Harden-Windows-Security was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (audit), 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
| rundeck | Harden-Windows-Security | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.3K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Groovy | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 987 | ⑂ 337 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rundeck if
- You weight community size — 6.3K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Harden-Windows-Security if
- You want the Harden-Windows-Security feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and Harden-Windows-Security fits your workflow better
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 →
About Harden-Windows-Security
Harden Windows Security is a GitHub repository and Windows focused security project written in C under the MIT license. It provides guides and tools for hardening Windows devices by using official, supported Microsoft methods rather than third party components. The project lives in the Windows and Microsoft security ecosystem, including Defender, BitLocker, firewall configuration, audit, encryption, compliance, enterprise security, and Intune.
read the full Harden-Windows-Security overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rundeck or Harden-Windows-Security more popular?
rundeck has 6,304 GitHub stars and Harden-Windows-Security has 4,746. rundeck has the larger community by that measure.
Are rundeck and Harden-Windows-Security free?
Both are open source. rundeck is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Harden-Windows-Security under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rundeck and Harden-Windows-Security?
rundeck is written in Groovy and Harden-Windows-Security in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rundeck or Harden-Windows-Security?
Choose rundeck if you want the larger community (6,304 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Harden-Windows-Security if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.