head to head · open source
SkillSpector vs ship-safe
SkillSpector has 23,981 GitHub stars, 2,070 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ship-safe has 870 stars, 115 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. SkillSpector leads on adoption by 2,656% (23,981 vs 870 stars). SkillSpector is written in Python under Apache-2.0; ship-safe is written in JavaScript under MIT. SkillSpector has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, ship-safe 13%. SkillSpector was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (agent-security, agentic-ai, ai-security, mcp), 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
| SkillSpector | ship-safe | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 870 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 115 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SkillSpector if
- You weight community size — 24K 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 ship-safe if
- You want the ship-safe feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and ship-safe fits your workflow better
About SkillSpector
SkillSpector Security scanner for AI agent skills. Detect vulnerabilities, malicious patterns, and security risks before installing agent skills. Overview AI agent skills (used by Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, etc.) execute with implicit trust and minimal vetting. In the 31,132 skill analyzed subset of the research dataset, 26.1% of skills contain vulnerabilities and 5.2% show likely malicious intent . SkillSpector helps you answer: "Is this skill safe to install?" SkillSpector is part of the NVIDIA Verified Skills pipeline, which scans, evaluates, and signs agent skills before publication. Skills that…
read the full SkillSpector overview →
About ship-safe
The independent security agent for AI written software. It finds issues, investigates whether they are real, and shows you the evidence. Website · Docs · Security & Data Flow · Benchmark · Pricing · Blog · Contribute Ship Safe CLI Ship Safe runs locally in your repo and works in two layers. A deterministic engine finds issues across application code, AI agents, MCP configs, prompts, dependencies, CI/CD, secrets, and cloud adjacent configuration. Fast, repeatable, and benchmarked — this is the sensor layer. An investigation layer then decides what the findings are worth. It traces the value that reaches a sink…
read the full ship-safe overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SkillSpector or ship-safe more popular?
SkillSpector has 23,981 GitHub stars and ship-safe has 870. SkillSpector has the larger community by that measure.
Are SkillSpector and ship-safe free?
Both are open source. SkillSpector is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ship-safe under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SkillSpector and ship-safe?
SkillSpector is written in Python and ship-safe in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, SkillSpector or ship-safe?
Choose SkillSpector if you want the larger community (23,981 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ship-safe if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.