head to head · open source
trivy vs gitleaks
trivy has 38,915 GitHub stars, 818 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gitleaks has 30,603 stars, 2,330 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. trivy leads on adoption by 27% (38,915 vs 30,603 stars). trivy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; gitleaks is written in Go under MIT. trivy has attracted 2% as many forks as stars, gitleaks 8%. trivy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (devsecops, go, golang, hacktoberfest), 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
| trivy | gitleaks | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 31K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 818 | ⑂ 2.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick trivy if
- You weight community size — 39K 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 gitleaks if
- You want the gitleaks feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gitleaks fits your workflow better
About trivy
[![GitHub Release][release img]][release] [![Test][test img]][test] [![Go Report Card][go report img]][go report] [![License: Apache 2.0][license img]][license] [![GitHub Downloads][github downloads img]][release] ![Docker Pulls][docker pulls] [📖 Documentation][docs] Trivy ([pronunciation][pronunciation]) is a comprehensive and versatile security scanner. Trivy has scanners that look for security issues, and targets where it can find those issues. Targets (what Trivy can scan): Container Image Filesystem Git Repository (remote) Virtual Machine Image Kubernetes Scanners (what Trivy can find there): OS packages…
read the full trivy overview →
About gitleaks
Gitleaks [!WARNING] Gitleaks is feature complete. I'm not merging new features into Gitleaks. Future releases will be security patches only. I'm shifting my focus to Betterleaks [license]: ./LICENSE [badge license]: [go docs badge]: [go docs]: [badge build]: [build]: [go report card badge]: [go report card]: [dockerhub]: [dockerhub badge]: [gitleaks action]: [gitleaks badge]: [![GitHub Action Test][badge build]][build] [![Docker Hub][dockerhub badge]][dockerhub] [![Gitleaks Action][gitleaks badge]][gitleaks action] [![GoDoc][go docs badge]][go docs] [![GoReportCard][go report card badge]][go report card]…
read the full gitleaks overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is trivy or gitleaks more popular?
trivy has 38,915 GitHub stars and gitleaks has 30,603. trivy has the larger community by that measure.
Are trivy and gitleaks free?
Both are open source. trivy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gitleaks under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between trivy and gitleaks?
trivy is written in Go and gitleaks 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, trivy or gitleaks?
Choose trivy if you want the larger community (38,915 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gitleaks if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.