head to head · open source
vuls vs nfcgate
vuls has 12,267 GitHub stars, 1,244 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. nfcgate has 2,378 stars, 274 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. vuls leads on adoption by 416% (12,267 vs 2,378 stars). vuls is written in Go under GPL-3.0; nfcgate is written in Java under Apache-2.0. vuls has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, nfcgate 12%. vuls was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (security, 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 | nfcgate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-07-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 274 |
| 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 nfcgate if
- You want the nfcgate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and nfcgate 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 nfcgate
NFCGate is an open source Android application for capturing, analyzing, and modifying NFC traffic, built as a security research toolkit for reverse engineering NFC protocols and testing them against modification.
read the full nfcgate overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vuls or nfcgate more popular?
vuls has 12,267 GitHub stars and nfcgate has 2,378. vuls has the larger community by that measure.
Are vuls and nfcgate free?
Both are open source. vuls is licensed under GPL-3.0 and nfcgate under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vuls and nfcgate?
vuls is written in Go and nfcgate in Java. 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 nfcgate?
Choose vuls if you want the larger community (12,267 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose nfcgate if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.