head to head · open source
teleport vs windows_hardening
teleport has 20,924 GitHub stars, 2,158 forks, 3,262 open issues and last shipped yesterday. windows_hardening has 2,658 stars, 331 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 18 days ago. teleport leads on adoption by 687% (20,924 vs 2,658 stars). teleport is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; windows_hardening is written in PowerShell under MIT. teleport has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, windows_hardening 12%. teleport 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
| teleport | windows_hardening | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PowerShell |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 331 |
| 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 windows_hardening if
- You want the windows_hardening feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PowerShell
- You evaluated both and windows_hardening 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 windows_hardening
HardeningKitty and Windows Hardening Settings is a PowerShell project for Windows security baselines, compliance checklists, and system hardening. It began as a simple Windows 10 hardening list and later became a tool that supports Microsoft guidelines, CIS Benchmarks, DoD STIG, BSI SiSyPHuS Win10, and the project's own list. The project lives in the Windows PowerShell and security baseline ecosystem.
read the full windows_hardening overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is teleport or windows_hardening more popular?
teleport has 20,924 GitHub stars and windows_hardening has 2,658. teleport has the larger community by that measure.
Are teleport and windows_hardening free?
Both are open source. teleport is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and windows_hardening under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between teleport and windows_hardening?
teleport is written in Go and windows_hardening in PowerShell. 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 windows_hardening?
Choose teleport if you want the larger community (20,924 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose windows_hardening if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.