head to head · open source
crit vs flow-next
crit has 1,101 GitHub stars, 88 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flow-next has 698 stars, 55 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. crit leads on adoption by 58% (1,101 vs 698 stars). crit is written in Go under MIT; flow-next is written in Python under MIT. crit has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, flow-next 8%. flow-next was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cli, code-review), 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
| crit | flow-next | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.1K | ★ 698 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 88 | ⑂ 55 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick crit if
- You weight community size — 1.1K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick flow-next if
- You want the flow-next feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and flow-next fits your workflow better
About crit
Crit is a local, single binary review interface for agentic coding workflows that lets a developer comment directly on generated plans, code diffs, and frontend elements and send that feedback back to the coding agent.
About flow-next
Flow Next is a workflow plugin that runs inside AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Droid, turning a change request into specs, implementation, adversarial cross model review, and a pull request with recorded evidence, and it is aimed at individual developers and teams who already generate code with agents but lack a repeatable way to verify the result.
read the full flow-next overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is crit or flow-next more popular?
crit has 1,101 GitHub stars and flow-next has 698. crit has the larger community by that measure.
Are crit and flow-next free?
Both are open source. crit is licensed under MIT and flow-next under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between crit and flow-next?
crit is written in Go and flow-next 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, crit or flow-next?
Choose crit if you want the larger community (1,101 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose flow-next if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.