Best Open-Source Security & Guardrails: HOL Guard vs REA
A data-backed comparison of the top two security & guardrails on HVTracker, built from public trust signals rather than stars alone.
Short answer: HOL Guard currently leads REA on HVTracker's evidence-weighted trust score: 91.7 vs 89.4/100. This is not a popularity ranking; it combines supply-chain safety, identity/provenance, transparency, maintenance, and adoption signals.
HOL Guard
Open-source antivirus for AI agents: block risky tools, secret access, prompt injection, malicious packages, MCP servers, plugins, and skills at runtime.
REA
Reverse engineer anything with agents, from app behavior down to native binaries.
HOL Guard vs REA: trust signal breakdown
Both projects are tracked in the Security & Guardrails category, but they do not expose the same evidence. The table below compares the public signals that feed HVTrust.
| Signal | HOL Guard | REA |
|---|---|---|
| HVTrust score | 91.7 | 89.4 |
| Safety / Integrity | 23.8/25 | 17.2/25 |
| Identity / Provenance | 18.0/18 | 18.0/18 |
| Transparency | 16.1/17 | 13.1/17 |
| Maintenance | 20.0/20 | 20.0/20 |
| Adoption | 12.5/20 | 17.9/20 |
| OSSF Scorecard | 9.0 | 5.4 |
| Signed commits | 100% | 60% |
| Package provenance | Verified | Verified |
Which one should you evaluate first?
If your priority is the most verifiable trust profile today, start with HOL Guard. It has the stronger current HVTrust score and ranks higher in Security & Guardrails. If your use case depends on a specific runtime, language, license, or integration model, use the individual profiles rather than the headline score alone.
For production use, the practical checklist is: inspect the security policy, confirm package provenance or release signing where available, review recent maintenance cadence, and compare the exact trust breakdown. HVTracker is meant to reduce the first-pass research burden, not replace your own risk review.