head to head · open source
cadence vs loopx
cadence has 9,536 GitHub stars, 930 forks, 205 open issues and last shipped yesterday. loopx has 6,548 stars, 619 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cadence leads on adoption by 46% (9,536 vs 6,548 stars). cadence is written in Go under Apache-2.0; loopx is written in Python under Apache-2.0. cadence has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, loopx 9%. loopx 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
| cadence | loopx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.5K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 930 | ⑂ 619 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cadence if
- You weight community size — 9.5K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick loopx if
- You want the loopx 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 loopx fits your workflow better
About cadence
Cadence Cadence Workflow is an open source platform since 2017 for building and running scalable, fault tolerant, and long running workflows. This repository contains the core orchestration engine and tools including CLI, schema managment, benchmark and canary. Getting Started Cadence backend consists of multiple services, a database (Cassandra/MySQL/PostgreSQL) and optionally Kafka+Elasticsearch. As a user, you need a worker which contains your workflow implementation. Once you have Cadence backend and worker(s) running, you can trigger workflows by using SDKs or via CLI. 1. Start cadence backend components…
read the full cadence overview →
About loopx
LoopX The open, provider neutral, stateful control plane for long horizon agents. Runs on top of Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and other agent harnesses. LoopX preserves objectives, gates, todos, evidence, quota, and handoffs across turns; the harness executes bounded work. Public website · Blog · Docs · Developer Book · Try LoopX · See real loops · How it works · 简体中文 Open and provider neutral, LoopX is a lightweight state kernel and local first control plane for loop engineering. It runs on top of different agent harnesses rather than replacing them, providing the long horizon state, semantic decisions about…
read the full loopx overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cadence or loopx more popular?
cadence has 9,536 GitHub stars and loopx has 6,548. cadence has the larger community by that measure.
Are cadence and loopx free?
Both are open source. cadence is licensed under Apache-2.0 and loopx under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cadence and loopx?
cadence is written in Go and loopx 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, cadence or loopx?
Choose cadence if you want the larger community (9,536 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose loopx if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.