head to head · open source
codebase-memory-mcp vs shellcheck
codebase-memory-mcp has 43,923 GitHub stars, 3,581 forks, 595 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. shellcheck has 40,060 stars, 1,946 forks, 1,137 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. codebase-memory-mcp leads on adoption by 10% (43,923 vs 40,060 stars). codebase-memory-mcp is written in C under MIT; shellcheck is written in Haskell under GPL-3.0. codebase-memory-mcp has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, shellcheck 5%. codebase-memory-mcp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (developer-tools), 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
| codebase-memory-mcp | shellcheck | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 40K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | Haskell |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 1.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick codebase-memory-mcp if
- You weight community size — 44K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick shellcheck if
- You want the shellcheck feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Haskell
- You evaluated both and shellcheck fits your workflow better
About codebase-memory-mcp
codebase memory mcp is a high performance code intelligence MCP server, written in C, that indexes a codebase into a persistent knowledge graph so AI coding agents can answer structural questions in under a millisecond, and it is built for developers and teams who run agents such as Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, aider, or Kilo Code against large repositories.
read the full codebase-memory-mcp overview →
About shellcheck
ShellCheck is a GPLv3 static analysis tool written in Haskell that gives warnings and suggestions for bash and sh shell scripts, aimed at everyone from beginners tripping over cryptic shell error messages to advanced users guarding otherwise working scripts against future corner cases.
read the full shellcheck overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is codebase-memory-mcp or shellcheck more popular?
codebase-memory-mcp has 43,923 GitHub stars and shellcheck has 40,060. codebase-memory-mcp has the larger community by that measure.
Are codebase-memory-mcp and shellcheck free?
Both are open source. codebase-memory-mcp is licensed under MIT and shellcheck under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between codebase-memory-mcp and shellcheck?
codebase-memory-mcp is written in C and shellcheck in Haskell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, codebase-memory-mcp or shellcheck?
Choose codebase-memory-mcp if you want the larger community (43,923 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose shellcheck if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.