head to head · open source
Archon vs obelisk
Archon has 23,828 GitHub stars, 3,524 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped yesterday. obelisk has 766 stars, 19 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Archon leads on adoption by 3,011% (23,828 vs 766 stars). Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT; obelisk is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. Archon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, obelisk 2%. obelisk 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 | obelisk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 766 |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 19 |
| 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 obelisk if
- You want the obelisk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and obelisk fits your workflow better
About Archon
Archon The first open source harness builder for AI coding. Make AI coding deterministic and repeatable. Archon is a workflow engine for AI coding agents. Define your development processes as YAML workflows planning, implementation, validation, code review, PR creation and run them reliably across all your projects. Like what Dockerfiles did for infrastructure and GitHub Actions did for CI/CD Archon does for AI coding workflows. Think n8n, but for software development. Why Archon? When you ask an AI agent to "fix this bug", what happens depends on the model's mood. It might skip planning. It might forget to run…
read the full Archon overview →
About obelisk
Obelisk A deterministic workflow engine built on the WASM Component Model. [!WARNING] Pre release : Expect changes in CLI, gRPC, WIT, and database schema. Obelisk in Action The Stargazers app features: A webhook listening to GitHub star events. Activities for interacting with Turso DB, OpenAI, and GitHub. A workflow orchestrating the activities. Obelisk fly.io deployment tool features: A complete workflow for deploying Obelisk apps on fly.io Cleanup / compensating actions on failure What's Included Obelisk Runtime : A single binary executing deterministic workflows, activities, and webhook endpoints, persisting…
read the full obelisk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Archon or obelisk more popular?
Archon has 23,828 GitHub stars and obelisk has 766. Archon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Archon and obelisk free?
Both are open source. Archon is licensed under MIT and obelisk under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Archon and obelisk?
Archon is written in TypeScript and obelisk in Rust. 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 obelisk?
Choose Archon if you want the larger community (23,828 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose obelisk if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.