head to head · open source
Archon vs loonflow
Archon has 23,505 GitHub stars, 3,474 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. loonflow has 2,090 stars, 704 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Archon leads on adoption by 1,025% (23,505 vs 2,090 stars). Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT; loonflow is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Archon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, loonflow 34%. Archon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (workflow-engine), 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 | loonflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-05-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 704 |
| 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 loonflow if
- You want the loonflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and loonflow 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 loonflow
Loonflow is an open source process automation platform for enterprises, built around ticket and workflow operations. It lives in the Django and Python web ecosystem, and the README also identifies React and MUI for the interface.
read the full loonflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Archon or loonflow more popular?
Archon has 23,505 GitHub stars and loonflow has 2,090. Archon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Archon and loonflow free?
Both are open source. Archon is licensed under MIT and loonflow under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Archon and loonflow?
Archon is written in TypeScript and loonflow 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 loonflow?
Choose Archon if you want the larger community (23,505 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose loonflow if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.