head to head · open source
ACI.dev vs Orbital
ACI.dev has 4,929 GitHub stars, 486 forks, 63 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Orbital has 361 stars, 14 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. ACI.dev leads on adoption by 1,265% (4,929 vs 361 stars). ACI.dev is written in Python under Apache-2.0; Orbital is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. ACI.dev has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Orbital 4%. ACI.dev was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (integration), 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
| ACI.dev | Orbital | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.9K | ★ 361 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-06-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 486 | ⑂ 14 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ACI.dev if
- You weight community size — 4.9K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Orbital if
- You want the Orbital feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Orbital fits your workflow better
About ACI.dev
ACI: Open Source Infra to Power Unified MCP Servers and VibeOps [!NOTE] This repo is for the ACI.dev platform. If you're looking for the Unified MCP server built with ACI.dev, see aci mcp. ACI.dev is the open source tool calling platform that hooks up 600+ tools into any agentic IDE or custom AI agent. It gives agents intent aware access to tools with multi tenant auth, granular permissions, and dynamic tool discovery—exposed as either direct function calls or through a Unified Model Context Protocol (MCP) server . Examples: Instead of writing separate OAuth flows and API clients for Google Calendar, Slack, and…
read the full ACI.dev overview →
About Orbital
Website • Docs • Blog Get in touch Orbital automates integration between your data sources. It's decentralized by nature there's no central mapping code defined. Instead, Orbital is powered by the API specs you're already building. Orbital creates integration on the fly, without engineers having to write glue code. Get started right now, by spinning up Orbital on your machine. Grab the docker compose.yml at Note that some of Orbital's test features leverage platform specific docker features. So, either visit the above in a browser and download the file (we'll work out the correct one to serve you), or... curl H…
read the full Orbital overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ACI.dev or Orbital more popular?
ACI.dev has 4,929 GitHub stars and Orbital has 361. ACI.dev has the larger community by that measure.
Are ACI.dev and Orbital free?
Both are open source. ACI.dev is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Orbital has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between ACI.dev and Orbital?
ACI.dev is written in Python and Orbital in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ACI.dev or Orbital?
Choose ACI.dev if you want the larger community (4,929 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Orbital if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.