head to head · open source
vuls vs cset
vuls has 12,268 GitHub stars, 1,244 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped today. cset has 1,899 stars, 336 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. vuls leads on adoption by 546% (12,268 vs 1,899 stars). vuls is written in Go under GPL-3.0; cset is written in TSQL under MIT. vuls has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, cset 18%. vuls was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (security-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
| vuls | cset | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TSQL |
| Last push | 2026-09-25 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 336 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vuls if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cset if
- You want the cset feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TSQL
- You evaluated both and cset fits your workflow better
About vuls
Vuls is an agent less vulnerability scanner written in Go and licensed under GPL 3.0, aimed at system administrators and security teams that must find and track known vulnerabilities across Linux, FreeBSD, Windows and macOS hosts, containers, WordPress installs, programming language libraries and network devices without installing an agent on every machine.
About cset
CSET (Cybersecurity Evaluation Tool) is a free, MIT licensed tool from the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) that walks asset owners step by step through collecting facility specific hardware, software, policy and user obligation information, compares it against relevant security standards and regulations, and recommends improvements — it is built for critical infrastructure and industrial control system owners, and for the security professionals who assess them.
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Frequently asked questions
Is vuls or cset more popular?
vuls has 12,268 GitHub stars and cset has 1,899. vuls has the larger community by that measure.
Are vuls and cset free?
Both are open source. vuls is licensed under GPL-3.0 and cset under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vuls and cset?
vuls is written in Go and cset in TSQL. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, vuls or cset?
Choose vuls if you want the larger community (12,268 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose cset if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.