head to head · open source
CocoIndex vs Lightdash
CocoIndex has 11,566 GitHub stars, 899 forks, 83 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lightdash has 6,139 stars, 777 forks, 1,018 open issues and last shipped yesterday. CocoIndex leads on adoption by 88% (11,566 vs 6,139 stars). CocoIndex is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Lightdash is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. CocoIndex has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Lightdash 13%. Lightdash 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
| CocoIndex | Lightdash | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 899 | ⑂ 777 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick CocoIndex if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Lightdash if
- You want the Lightdash feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Lightdash fits your workflow better
About CocoIndex
CocoIndex is an open source incremental data transformation engine for AI workloads, built in Rust with a Python interface and positioned in the data engineering, ETL, indexing, and AI agent ecosystem. It turns codebases, meeting notes, inboxes, Slack, PDFs, and videos into continuously fresh context for AI agents and LLM applications.
read the full CocoIndex overview →
About Lightdash
Lightdash is an open source, agentic business intelligence platform for modern data teams, written in TypeScript and distributed under a NOASSERTION license. It lives in the data and analytics ecosystem, specifically the data engineering and integration space, and it is built around dbt and warehouse native workflows. The project describes itself as agentic BI, meaning analytics is intended to move at the speed of code rather than through point and click configuration alone.
read the full Lightdash overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is CocoIndex or Lightdash more popular?
CocoIndex has 11,566 GitHub stars and Lightdash has 6,139. CocoIndex has the larger community by that measure.
Are CocoIndex and Lightdash free?
Both are open source. CocoIndex is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Lightdash has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between CocoIndex and Lightdash?
CocoIndex is written in Rust and Lightdash 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, CocoIndex or Lightdash?
Choose CocoIndex if you want the larger community (11,566 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Lightdash if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.