head to head · open source
gentle-shell vs crit
gentle-shell has 1,553 GitHub stars, 252 forks, 369 open issues and last shipped yesterday. crit has 1,268 stars, 106 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. gentle-shell leads on adoption by 22% (1,553 vs 1,268 stars). gentle-shell is written in TypeScript under MIT; crit is written in Go under MIT. gentle-shell has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, crit 8%. gentle-shell was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (ai-agents, code-review, developer-tools, 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
| gentle-shell | crit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.6K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 252 | ⑂ 106 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gentle-shell if
- You weight community size — 1.6K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick crit if
- You want the crit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and crit fits your workflow better
About gentle-shell
gentle shell™ Your coding agent for controlled development in the workspace you lead. Website · Quickstart · Docs · Wiki Your terminal can run an agent. Your workspace should help you lead it. gentle shell is your coding agent, bringing your changes, tasks, and engineering workflow together—built for Pi. One workspace. A coding agent you direct. A workflow you can inspect. BUILT FOR PI · Coding agent workspace · Focused agents · ODD + optional SDD ★ Star gentle shell on GitHub Built for Pi. Shaped by Gentle AI. Features gentle shell — Your coding agent, in the workspace you lead A complete workspace for the…
read the full gentle-shell overview →
About crit
Crit Review and comment on plans, code diffs, frontend elements and send feedback directly to your agent. Adaptive UI for each type of output For agents, plans and code are all the same it's just text, but for us, humans, reviewing generated plans and reviewing web application are two very different activities. Crit adds a proper interface for each type of output and lets you point at the exact thing that is wrong and leave a comment for the agent to fix: crit plan.md renders a markdown file with proper formatting and review UI crit auto detects git changes and shows syntax highlighted diffs for local review…
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Frequently asked questions
Is gentle-shell or crit more popular?
gentle-shell has 1,553 GitHub stars and crit has 1,268. gentle-shell has the larger community by that measure.
Are gentle-shell and crit free?
Both are open source. gentle-shell is licensed under MIT and crit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gentle-shell and crit?
gentle-shell is written in TypeScript and crit in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gentle-shell or crit?
Choose gentle-shell if you want the larger community (1,553 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose crit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.