head to head · open source
rtk vs codegraph
rtk has 80,883 GitHub stars, 5,130 forks, 1,642 open issues and last shipped yesterday. codegraph has 71,385 stars, 4,590 forks, 518 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. rtk leads on adoption by 13% (80,883 vs 71,385 stars). rtk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; codegraph is written in C under MIT. rtk has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, codegraph 6%. rtk 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
| rtk | codegraph | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 71K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.1K | ⑂ 4.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rtk if
- You weight community size — 81K 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 codegraph if
- You want the codegraph feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and codegraph fits your workflow better
About rtk
rtk is an Apache 2.0 Rust CLI proxy that sits between an AI coding agent and the shell, filtering and compressing command output so 60 90% fewer tokens reach the model, and it is built for developers running agentic coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex against real repositories.
About codegraph
CodeGraph is a pre indexed code knowledge graph that runs locally and wires into AI coding agents — Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, OpenCode, AntiGravity, Kiro, GitHub Copilot, and Hermes Agent — so those agents query a semantic map of the codebase instead of reading files one at a time.
read the full codegraph overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rtk or codegraph more popular?
rtk has 80,883 GitHub stars and codegraph has 71,385. rtk has the larger community by that measure.
Are rtk and codegraph free?
Both are open source. rtk is licensed under Apache-2.0 and codegraph under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rtk and codegraph?
rtk is written in Rust and codegraph in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rtk or codegraph?
Choose rtk if you want the larger community (80,883 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose codegraph if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.