head to head · open source
teleport vs ossec-hids
teleport has 20,924 GitHub stars, 2,158 forks, 3,262 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ossec-hids has 5,057 stars, 1,074 forks, 125 open issues and last shipped yesterday. teleport leads on adoption by 314% (20,924 vs 5,057 stars). teleport is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; ossec-hids is written in C under GPL-2.0. teleport has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ossec-hids 21%. teleport 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
| teleport | ossec-hids | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 5.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick teleport if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ossec-hids if
- You want the ossec-hids feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and ossec-hids fits your workflow better
About teleport
Teleport is an open source, identity aware access plane that provides connectivity, authentication, access control, and audit for servers, Kubernetes clusters, databases, Windows desktops, web applications, and cloud APIs, and it is aimed at platform, security, and infrastructure teams that need to protect access to that infrastructure.
read the full teleport overview →
About ossec-hids
OSSEC is an open source host based intrusion detection system written in C and released under the GNU General Public License version 2. It combines several security functions into one platform: log analysis, file integrity checking, policy monitoring, rootkit detection, real time alerting, and active response. The project describes itself as a full platform to monitor and control systems, mixing the aspects of HIDS, log monitoring, and SIM/SIEM into a single solution. It lives in the security and compliance tooling ecosystem, with topics spanning intrusion detection, file integrity management, log analysis, PCI D…
read the full ossec-hids overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is teleport or ossec-hids more popular?
teleport has 20,924 GitHub stars and ossec-hids has 5,057. teleport has the larger community by that measure.
Are teleport and ossec-hids free?
Both are open source. teleport is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and ossec-hids under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between teleport and ossec-hids?
teleport is written in Go and ossec-hids 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, teleport or ossec-hids?
Choose teleport if you want the larger community (20,924 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose ossec-hids if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.