head to head · open source
Archon vs CodeMachine-CLI
Archon has 23,505 GitHub stars, 3,474 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. CodeMachine-CLI has 2,510 stars, 238 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Archon leads on adoption by 836% (23,505 vs 2,510 stars). Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT; CodeMachine-CLI is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Archon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, CodeMachine-CLI 9%. Archon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (ai, automation, cli, developer-tools), 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
| Archon | CodeMachine-CLI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-02-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 238 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Archon if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick CodeMachine-CLI if
- You want the CodeMachine-CLI feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and CodeMachine-CLI fits your workflow better
About Archon
Archon is an open source workflow engine for AI coding agents, written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license. It lives in the AI coding ecosystem, alongside tools such as Claude Code, and is distributed through the Bun runtime and the GitHub CLI. The project describes itself as a harness builder: it lets a developer encode a development process as a YAML workflow and then run that workflow reliably across projects. Workflows are stored in a .archon/workflows/ directory and committed to the repository, so the same definition can be invoked from the CLI, a web UI, Slack, Telegram, or GitHub.…
read the full Archon overview →
About CodeMachine-CLI
CodeMachine is an open source orchestration layer, written in TypeScript and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, that runs AI coding command line agents through structured, repeatable workflows for developers and teams who want long running agent work defined once and executed the same way on every project.
read the full CodeMachine-CLI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Archon or CodeMachine-CLI more popular?
Archon has 23,505 GitHub stars and CodeMachine-CLI has 2,510. Archon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Archon and CodeMachine-CLI free?
Both are open source. Archon is licensed under MIT and CodeMachine-CLI under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Archon and CodeMachine-CLI?
Archon is written in TypeScript and CodeMachine-CLI 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, Archon or CodeMachine-CLI?
Choose Archon if you want the larger community (23,505 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose CodeMachine-CLI if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.