head to head · open source
Stoat vs helm-secrets
Stoat has 3,450 GitHub stars, 407 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped yesterday. helm-secrets has 2,038 stars, 156 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Stoat leads on adoption by 69% (3,450 vs 2,038 stars). Stoat is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; helm-secrets is written in Shell under Apache-2.0. Stoat has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, helm-secrets 8%. Stoat 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
| Stoat | helm-secrets | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.5K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 407 | ⑂ 156 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Stoat if
- You weight community size — 3.5K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick helm-secrets if
- You want the helm-secrets feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and helm-secrets fits your workflow better
About Stoat
Stoat Backend The services and libraries that power the Stoat service.
read the full Stoat overview →
About helm-secrets
helm secrets ⭐ Don't forget to star this repository! ⭐ About helm secrets is a Helm plugin to decrypt encrypted Helm value files on the fly. Use sops to encrypt value files and store them in git. Store your secrets in a cloud native secret manager like AWS SecretManager, Azure KeyVault or HashiCorp Vault and inject them inside value files or templates. Use helm secret in your favorite deployment tool or GitOps Operator like ArgoCD Who’s actually using helm secrets? If you are using helm secrets in your company or organization, we would like to invite you to create a PR to add your information to this file…
read the full helm-secrets overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Stoat or helm-secrets more popular?
Stoat has 3,450 GitHub stars and helm-secrets has 2,038. Stoat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Stoat and helm-secrets free?
Both are open source. Stoat has no licence declared in this registry, and helm-secrets is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Stoat and helm-secrets?
Stoat is written in Rust and helm-secrets 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, Stoat or helm-secrets?
Choose Stoat if you want the larger community (3,450 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose helm-secrets if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.