head to head · open source
Appwrite vs kubevela
Appwrite has 57,400 GitHub stars, 5,725 forks, 1,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kubevela has 7,897 stars, 1,068 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Appwrite leads on adoption by 627% (57,400 vs 7,897 stars). Appwrite is written in PHP under BSD-3-Clause; kubevela is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Appwrite has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, kubevela 14%. Appwrite was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Appwrite | kubevela | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 7.9K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.7K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Appwrite if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kubevela if
- You want the kubevela feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kubevela fits your workflow better
About Appwrite
Appwrite is an open source backend platform that consolidates infrastructure services—authentication, databases, storage, functions, messaging, hosting, and real time capabilities—into a single, unified system. It runs as a self hosted service or via a managed cloud offering (Appwrite Cloud), targeting developers who want to avoid assembling and maintaining disparate backend tools.
read the full Appwrite overview →
About kubevela
KubeVela is an open source modern application delivery platform that runs on Kubernetes and makes deploying and operating applications across hybrid and multi cloud environments easier, faster and more reliable. It is written in Go, released under the Apache 2.0 license, and listed in the CNCF topic set alongside continuous delivery and control plane tooling. The project lives in the cloud native ecosystem, where it acts as a control plane that glues infrastructure capabilities together and orchestrates them as reusable modules. Its delivery model is built around the Open Application Model, with CUE used to defin…
read the full kubevela overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Appwrite or kubevela more popular?
Appwrite has 57,400 GitHub stars and kubevela has 7,897. Appwrite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Appwrite and kubevela free?
Both are open source. Appwrite is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and kubevela under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Appwrite and kubevela?
Appwrite is written in PHP and kubevela in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Appwrite or kubevela?
Choose Appwrite if you want the larger community (57,400 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose kubevela if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.