head to head · open source
Checkmate vs calico
Checkmate has 10,857 GitHub stars, 1,206 forks, 114 open issues and last shipped yesterday. calico has 7,363 stars, 1,607 forks, 279 open issues and last shipped today. Checkmate leads on adoption by 47% (10,857 vs 7,363 stars). Checkmate is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; calico is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Checkmate has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, calico 22%. calico 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
| Checkmate | calico | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 7.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Checkmate if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick calico if
- You want the calico feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and calico fits your workflow better
About Checkmate
Checkmate is an open source, self hosted monitoring application for infrastructure and observability. It is written in TypeScript and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. The repository contains the frontend and backend, and the project sits in the infrastructure monitoring ecosystem for teams that need to track servers, websites, and hardware status without relying on a hosted only product.
read the full Checkmate overview →
About calico
Calico is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed cloud native networking and network security project for Kubernetes clusters, maintained by Tigera and aimed at platform engineers, cluster operators and network teams who need container networking, network policy enforcement and encryption across on premises, cloud and bare metal environments.
read the full calico overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Checkmate or calico more popular?
Checkmate has 10,857 GitHub stars and calico has 7,363. Checkmate has the larger community by that measure.
Are Checkmate and calico free?
Both are open source. Checkmate is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and calico under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Checkmate and calico?
Checkmate is written in TypeScript and calico in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Checkmate or calico?
Choose Checkmate if you want the larger community (10,857 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose calico if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.