head to head · open source
Cherry Studio vs waku-agent
Cherry Studio has 53,242 GitHub stars, 5,172 forks, 1,514 open issues and last shipped yesterday. waku-agent has 2,131 stars, 419 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. Cherry Studio leads on adoption by 2,398% (53,242 vs 2,131 stars). Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; waku-agent is written in Python under MIT. Cherry Studio has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, waku-agent 20%. Cherry Studio was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| Cherry Studio | waku-agent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 53K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 419 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Cherry Studio if
- You weight community size — 53K 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 waku-agent if
- You want the waku-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and waku-agent fits your workflow better
About Cherry Studio
English Official Site Documents Development Feedback [![][deepwiki shield]][deepwiki link] [![][twitter shield]][twitter link] [![][discord shield]][discord link] [![][telegram shield]][telegram link] [![][github release shield]][github release link] [![][github nightly shield]][github nightly link] [![][github contributors shield]][github contributors link] [![][license shield]][license link] [![][commercial shield]][commercial link] [![][sponsor shield]][sponsor link] 🍒 Cherry Studio Cherry Studio is a desktop client that supports multiple LLM providers, available on Windows, Mac and Linux. 👏 Join Telegram…
read the full Cherry Studio overview →
About waku-agent
waku agent Your own AI assistant. On your laptop. In code you can read in an afternoon. Meet Waku — a local first personal assistant that shows the four pillars behind every serious agent: Harness · Loop · Memory · Eval/LLM Ops . No frameworks hiding the good parts. Built by seanchen.io. Local first. Your memory is one SQLite file. Open it. Read it. It's yours. Memory is the hero. Semantic + episodic + procedural — with a gate that decides whether to remember, and a pass that decides what to keep. The loop is 95 lines of plain Python. Step through it. Watch it think. A local dashboard lights up every message as…
read the full waku-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cherry Studio or waku-agent more popular?
Cherry Studio has 53,242 GitHub stars and waku-agent has 2,131. Cherry Studio has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cherry Studio and waku-agent free?
Both are open source. Cherry Studio is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and waku-agent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Cherry Studio and waku-agent?
Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript and waku-agent 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, Cherry Studio or waku-agent?
Choose Cherry Studio if you want the larger community (53,242 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose waku-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.