head to head · open source
crit vs gentle-shell
crit has 1,101 GitHub stars, 88 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gentle-shell has 934 stars, 138 forks, 369 open issues and last shipped yesterday. crit leads on adoption by 18% (1,101 vs 934 stars). crit is written in Go under MIT; gentle-shell is written in TypeScript under MIT. crit has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, gentle-shell 15%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| crit | gentle-shell | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.1K | ★ 934 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 88 | ⑂ 138 |
| 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 gentle-shell if
- You want the gentle-shell feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and gentle-shell 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 gentle-shell
gentle shell is a senior architect development harness for the Pi platform that turns a terminal coding agent into a controlled workspace with spec driven development, focused subagents, strict TDD evidence, review guardrails, and skill discovery.
read the full gentle-shell overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More Version Control & Collaboration projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Version Control & Collaboration field.
Frequently asked questions
Is crit or gentle-shell more popular?
crit has 1,101 GitHub stars and gentle-shell has 934. crit has the larger community by that measure.
Are crit and gentle-shell free?
Both are open source. crit is licensed under MIT and gentle-shell under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between crit and gentle-shell?
crit is written in Go and gentle-shell 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, crit or gentle-shell?
Choose crit if you want the larger community (1,101 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gentle-shell if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.