head to head · open source
caveman vs Dyad
caveman has 108,615 GitHub stars, 6,296 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped today. Dyad has 21,619 stars, 2,655 forks, 359 open issues and last shipped today. caveman leads on adoption by 402% (108,615 vs 21,619 stars). caveman is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Dyad is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. caveman has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Dyad 12%. Dyad was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (anthropic, llm), 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
| caveman | Dyad | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 109K | ★ 22K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caveman if
- You weight community size — 109K 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 Dyad if
- You want the Dyad feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Dyad fits your workflow better
About caveman
why use many token when few do trick Your AI coding agent bills by the word and writes like it knows that. Caveman make it stop. ▶️ ThePrimeagen reacts: "No way this actually works" 🏆 1 on GitHub Trending · July 2026 · 🥇 1 Repository of the Day on Trendshift · April 2026 1 on Hacker News · 904 points · 366 comments · 8 Product of the Day on Product Hunt 📄 Cited in CAVEWOMAN , an Adobe Research paper that measured caveman style output cutting cost 1.4 to 2.4×, up to 3× · 🧪 Tested by JetBrains on 86 real coding tasks: "costs you nothing measurable in quality" ⚡ One command, no account, no API key. npx skills…
read the full caveman overview →
About Dyad
Dyad is a local, open source AI app builder for developer tools and AI assisted coding. It is positioned as a desktop alternative to hosted builders such as Lovable, v0, and Bolt, running on the user's own machine. The project is written in TypeScript and distributed through a public GitHub repository under a split license: code outside src/pro is Apache 2.0, while code inside src/pro is Functional Source License 1.1 Apache 2.0.
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Frequently asked questions
Is caveman or Dyad more popular?
caveman has 108,615 GitHub stars and Dyad has 21,619. caveman has the larger community by that measure.
Are caveman and Dyad free?
Both are open source. caveman is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Dyad has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between caveman and Dyad?
caveman is written in Go and Dyad 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, caveman or Dyad?
Choose caveman if you want the larger community (108,615 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Dyad if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.