head to head · open source
Archon vs rowboat
Archon has 23,495 GitHub stars, 3,474 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rowboat has 17,871 stars, 1,776 forks, 167 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Archon leads on adoption by 31% (23,495 vs 17,871 stars). Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT; rowboat is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Archon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, rowboat 10%. Archon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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 | rowboat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 18K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 rowboat if
- You want the rowboat 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 rowboat 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 rowboat
Rowboat is an open source desktop AI coworker, licensed Apache 2.0 and written in TypeScript, that maintains a memory of your work as a local Markdown knowledge graph and provides built in surfaces — email, notes, browser, code mode, meeting notes — for acting on that memory.
read the full rowboat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Archon or rowboat more popular?
Archon has 23,495 GitHub stars and rowboat has 17,871. Archon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Archon and rowboat free?
Both are open source. Archon is licensed under MIT and rowboat under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Archon and rowboat?
Archon is written in TypeScript and rowboat 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 rowboat?
Choose Archon if you want the larger community (23,495 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rowboat if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.