head to head · open source
vuls vs npq
vuls has 12,273 GitHub stars, 1,244 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped today. npq has 1,796 stars, 43 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. vuls leads on adoption by 583% (12,273 vs 1,796 stars). vuls is written in Go under GPL-3.0; npq is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. vuls has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, npq 2%. vuls was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (security, security-audit, security-tools), 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 | npq | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-28 | 2026-08-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 43 |
| 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 npq if
- You want the npq feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and npq 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 npq
npq is a command line security tool that audits npm packages before they are installed, aimed at Node.js developers and supply chain security teams who want a pre install checkpoint rather than discovering a malicious or vulnerable dependency after its install scripts have already run.
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Frequently asked questions
Is vuls or npq more popular?
vuls has 12,273 GitHub stars and npq has 1,796. vuls has the larger community by that measure.
Are vuls and npq free?
Both are open source. vuls is licensed under GPL-3.0 and npq under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vuls and npq?
vuls is written in Go and npq in JavaScript. 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 npq?
Choose vuls if you want the larger community (12,273 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose npq if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.