head to head · open source
archify vs rea
archify has 79,885 GitHub stars, 5,357 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rea has 29,472 stars, 3,500 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped today. archify leads on adoption by 171% (79,885 vs 29,472 stars). archify is written in JavaScript under MIT; rea is written in TypeScript under MIT. archify has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, rea 12%. rea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (agent-skills, ai-agents, claude-code, codex), 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
| archify | rea | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 80K | ★ 29K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick archify if
- You weight community size — 80K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rea if
- You want the rea feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and rea fits your workflow better
About archify
Archify is an MIT licensed agent skill and Node.js rendering and validation system that turns a codebase or a written system description into a polished, interactive, self contained HTML system map, and it is built for developers and platform teams working inside coding agents such as Cursor, Claude Code, Codex CLI, and OpenCode.
read the full archify overview →
About rea
REA is an open source MCP server and CLI that lets AI coding agents — and your terminal — reverse engineer native binaries, JavaScript and Electron apps, .NET assemblies, and websites, with evidence attached to every conclusion.
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Frequently asked questions
Is archify or rea more popular?
archify has 79,885 GitHub stars and rea has 29,472. archify has the larger community by that measure.
Are archify and rea free?
Both are open source. archify is licensed under MIT and rea under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between archify and rea?
archify is written in JavaScript and rea 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, archify or rea?
Choose archify if you want the larger community (79,885 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rea if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.