head to head · open source
Archon vs Mage
Archon has 23,495 GitHub stars, 3,474 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mage has 8,823 stars, 990 forks, 624 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Archon leads on adoption by 166% (23,495 vs 8,823 stars). Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT; Mage is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Archon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Mage 11%. Archon 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
| Archon | Mage | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 990 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Archon if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Mage if
- You want the Mage feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Mage 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 Mage
Mage is an Apache 2.0 licensed, self hosted development environment for building, running, and managing data pipelines, aimed at data engineers, data scientists, and analytics teams who want to develop ETL, ELT, and orchestration workflows locally before scaling them.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Archon or Mage more popular?
Archon has 23,495 GitHub stars and Mage has 8,823. Archon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Archon and Mage free?
Both are open source. Archon is licensed under MIT and Mage under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Archon and Mage?
Archon is written in TypeScript and Mage in Python. 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 Mage?
Choose Archon if you want the larger community (23,495 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Mage if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.