head to head · open source
kyverno vs tfsec
kyverno has 8,168 GitHub stars, 1,602 forks, 703 open issues and last shipped today. tfsec has 7,038 stars, 558 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. kyverno leads on adoption by 16% (8,168 vs 7,038 stars). kyverno is written in Go under Apache-2.0; tfsec is written in Go under MIT. kyverno has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, tfsec 8%. kyverno was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (compliance), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| kyverno | tfsec | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.2K | ★ 7.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-03-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 558 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kyverno if
- You weight community size — 8.2K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick tfsec if
- You want the tfsec feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tfsec fits your workflow better
About kyverno
Kyverno is a Kubernetes native policy engine that lets platform engineering teams define security, compliance, automation, and governance rules as policy as code, using the Kubernetes tools they already run rather than a separate policy language.
read the full kyverno overview →
About tfsec
tfsec is a static analysis security scanner for Terraform code, written in Go and released under the MIT license. It lives in the infrastructure as code and DevSecOps ecosystem, alongside tools such as linters and CI scanners. The project is now part of Trivy, Aqua Security's broader open source security scanner, and its Terraform scanning engine forms the foundation of Trivy's IaC and misconfiguration scanning capabilities. The repository remains available, but engineering attention is directed at Trivy going forward.
read the full tfsec overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Compliance & Risk Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Compliance & Risk Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is kyverno or tfsec more popular?
kyverno has 8,168 GitHub stars and tfsec has 7,038. kyverno has the larger community by that measure.
Are kyverno and tfsec free?
Both are open source. kyverno is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tfsec under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kyverno and tfsec?
kyverno is written in Go and tfsec 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, kyverno or tfsec?
Choose kyverno if you want the larger community (8,168 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tfsec if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.