detect-secrets vs Git Secret Scanner
detect-secrets
github.comGit Secret Scanner
github.comSide by side
| Figure | detect-secrets | Git Secret Scanner |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Secrets Scanning Software | 8.5 (#3) | 7.7 (#13) |
| Detection | Its detection strategies include regex rules, entropy heuristics, and keyword detection. | The README describes pattern matching, Shannon entropy analysis, context scoring, and denylist filtering to reduce false positives. |
| Integrations | The README documents installation through pip and Homebrew and integration as a pre-commit hook. | The README provides GitHub Actions and GitLab CI examples and documents SARIF upload to GitHub Advanced Security. |
| License | The repository identifies its license as Apache-2.0. | The repository states that the tool is MIT licensed and may be used and modified for personal or commercial projects. |
| Purpose | detect-secrets detects secrets in code and helps prevent new secrets from entering a codebase. | Git Secret Scanner detects hardcoded credentials in GitHub organizations and local filesystems. |
Plans
In their own words
detect-secrets
detect-secrets is a free, open-source Python module for finding secrets in codebases and helping stop new secrets from entering Git changes. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with self-hosted use documented through pip or Homebrew. Heuristic regular expressions inspect changes for newly committed secrets, alongside entropy and keyword detection. The scan command creates or updates a baseline of potential findings; hook flags new secrets; and audit lets analysts review, label, report, or compare baseline entries. Users can configure it as a pre-commit hook with the pre-commit framework. Built-in plugins and filters can be adjusted, and custom detector plugins and filters can be developed. Exclusions, matching-line or file exclusions, secret-value exclusions, and inline allowlist comments help handle false positives. The package can also be imported into Python scripts to scan files and serialize findings. Word-list filtering and gibberish detection require optional packages, and gibberish detection is disabled by default. The project uses Apache-2.0 licensing.
Git Secret Scanner
Git Secret Scanner has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.