head to head · open source
vuls vs emba
vuls has 12,264 GitHub stars, 1,243 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped yesterday. emba has 3,672 stars, 325 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. vuls leads on adoption by 234% (12,264 vs 3,672 stars). vuls is written in Go under GPL-3.0; emba is written in Shell under GPL-3.0. vuls has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, emba 9%. vuls was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (linux), 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 | emba | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 325 |
| 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 emba if
- You want the emba feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and emba 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 emba
EMBA is the open source security analyzer for firmware of embedded devices, a Shell based command line tool that carries penetration testers, product security teams, developers and product managers from firmware extraction through static analysis, emulation based dynamic analysis and SBOM creation to a web based vulnerability report.
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Frequently asked questions
Is vuls or emba more popular?
vuls has 12,264 GitHub stars and emba has 3,672. vuls has the larger community by that measure.
Are vuls and emba free?
Both are open source. vuls is licensed under GPL-3.0 and emba under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vuls and emba?
vuls is written in Go and emba in Shell. 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 emba?
Choose vuls if you want the larger community (12,264 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose emba if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.