Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.

The grid says what these tools are. This says what builders did about it — one decision per person, changeable whenever you change your mind.

# Tool comparison — Vitest vs Dependabot vs Gitleaks

Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects.
Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code.

## Vitest (vitest)
- URL: https://vitest.dev
- Category: Code review, testing & security
- Cost: free — $0 forever, MIT open source
- What it is: Vite-native test framework with a Jest-compatible API, so most existing suites and matchers port over unchanged. It reuses your existing vite.config, and supports mocking, snapshots, coverage reporting and a browser mode that runs component tests in a real browser. Needs Vite 6+ and Node 20+.
- Why builders pick it: Fast enough to run on every agent-generated change, which is the only reliable way to notice that a confident AI refactor quietly broke an unrelated module three directories away.
- Wiring: npm install -D vitest
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/vitest

## Dependabot (dependabot)
- URL: https://docs.github.com/en/code-security/dependabot
- Category: Code review, testing & security
- Cost: free — $0 on all GitHub repositories, public and private, including private repos on the free GitHub plan
- What it is: GitHub-native bot with three jobs: alerts for vulnerable dependencies drawn from the GitHub Advisory Database, security updates that automatically open pull requests bumping to a patched version, and scheduled version updates configured in .github/dependabot.yml. Grouped updates and auto-merge rules keep pull request volume manageable.
- Why builders pick it: Zero-cost, near-zero-config baseline. The package.json your agent wrote will drift into known-CVE territory within months, and this is the one tool that quietly fixes it while you sleep.
- Trap: It only knows advisories already published to GitHub's database, so brand-new malicious packages slip through; pair it with Socket. It also skips archived repos, and ungrouped updates get spammy fast.
- Wiring: Enable under repo Settings > Code security, then add .github/dependabot.yml
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/dependabot

## Gitleaks (gitleaks)
- URL: https://github.com/gitleaks/gitleaks
- Category: Code review, testing & security
- Cost: free — $0 forever, MIT open source; the official GitHub Action needs a free license key for organisation-owned repos, none for personal accounts
- What it is: Scans git repositories, loose files and stdin for passwords, API keys and tokens. It walks full commit history using git log -p, so it finds credentials in old commits that were later deleted from the working tree. Runs as a CLI, pre-commit hook, Docker image or GitHub Action.
- Why builders pick it: The highest-value five-minute install on this list. An assistant pasting a live OPENAI_API_KEY or database URL into a committed config file is routine, and once pushed only history rewriting removes it.
- Trap: Entropy-based detection false-positives on hashes, lockfiles and test fixtures, so budget time for a .gitleaksignore baseline. The maintainer has declared it feature complete, security patches only.
- Wiring: brew install gitleaks && gitleaks detect --source .
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/gitleaks

## Quick read

- No logged gotchas: Vitest.

## Rules
1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is.
2. Read the full dossier before integrating.
3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.

Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=vitest,dependabot,gitleaks