head to head · open source
Appwrite vs swiftwave
Appwrite has 57,854 GitHub stars, 5,830 forks, 1,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swiftwave has 909 stars, 65 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Appwrite leads on adoption by 6,265% (57,854 vs 909 stars). Appwrite is written in TypeScript under BSD-3-Clause; swiftwave is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Appwrite has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, swiftwave 7%. Appwrite was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (docker), 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
| Appwrite | swiftwave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 58K | ★ 909 |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 65 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Appwrite if
- You weight community size — 58K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick swiftwave if
- You want the swiftwave 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 swiftwave fits your workflow better
About Appwrite
Appwrite Appwrite is an open source, all in one development platform. Use built in backend infrastructure and web hosting, all from a single place. English 简体中文 Appwrite is an open source development platform for building web, mobile, and AI applications. It brings together backend infrastructure and web hosting in one place, so teams can build, ship, and scale without stitching together a fragmented stack. Appwrite is available as a managed cloud platform and can also be self hosted on infrastructure you control. With Appwrite, you can add authentication, databases, storage, functions, messaging, realtime…
read the full Appwrite overview →
About swiftwave
SwiftWave is a self hosted, lightweight PaaS solution for easily deploying and managing your applications on any server 🚀. It's an open source alternative to Heroku, Netlify, and Render. You can install swiftwave in bare metal, Raspberry Pi, in any VPS(Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS, GCP etc.). Swiftwave and its dependencies are compatible with AMD64, ARM64 and ARMv7 architectures and compatible with Debian/Ubuntu/Raspbian OS/Fedora/CentOS/AlmaLinux/RockyLinux etc. Checkout swiftwave.org to explore more Why Swiftwave ? If you like to know why Swiftwave created and what is special in it, check this…
read the full swiftwave overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Appwrite or swiftwave more popular?
Appwrite has 57,854 GitHub stars and swiftwave has 909. Appwrite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Appwrite and swiftwave free?
Both are open source. Appwrite is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and swiftwave under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Appwrite and swiftwave?
Appwrite is written in TypeScript and swiftwave 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 swiftwave?
Choose Appwrite if you want the larger community (57,854 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose swiftwave if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.