head to head · open source
shannon vs pipelock
shannon has 50,964 GitHub stars, 5,926 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. pipelock has 978 stars, 112 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shannon leads on adoption by 5,111% (50,964 vs 978 stars). shannon is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; pipelock is written in Go under Apache-2.0. shannon has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, pipelock 11%. pipelock was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-security), 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
| shannon | pipelock | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 51K | ★ 978 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-27 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.9K | ⑂ 112 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick shannon if
- You weight community size — 51K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pipelock if
- You want the pipelock feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pipelock fits your workflow better
About shannon
[!NOTE] Shannon 3.0 is live: deeper security code analysis, more thoroughly vetted findings, a rebuilt CLI, native CI/CD, professional PDF reports, and SARIF. Shannon is an autonomous, AI pentester for web applications and APIs. It analyzes your source code, identifies attack paths, and executes real exploits to prove vulnerabilities before they reach production. No exploit, no report. This repository is Shannon Open Source: the full agent, run locally from your command line. Launch Shannon The interactive launcher will guide you through setup and your first pentest. [!TIP] AI agents and LLMs: start with…
read the full shannon overview →
About pipelock
Open source AI agent firewall for Verifiable Egress Control . Pipelock sits between AI agents and the network. It inspects mediated HTTP, WebSocket, MCP, and A2A traffic, plus CONNECT tunnel contents when TLS interception is enabled, for secret exfiltration, prompt injection, SSRF, tool poisoning, and risky tool call chains. Plain CONNECT without interception is scanned at the hostname and URL level. Configured MCP upstreams are an exception to private address SSRF blocking: local/private servers are allowed, but cloud metadata endpoints remain blocked. Pipelock emits mediator signed action receipts over content…
read the full pipelock overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shannon or pipelock more popular?
shannon has 50,964 GitHub stars and pipelock has 978. shannon has the larger community by that measure.
Are shannon and pipelock free?
Both are open source. shannon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pipelock under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shannon and pipelock?
shannon is written in TypeScript and pipelock 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, shannon or pipelock?
Choose shannon if you want the larger community (50,964 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pipelock if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.