head to head · open source
Cube vs API
Cube has 21,147 GitHub stars, 2,179 forks, 1,185 open issues and last shipped yesterday. API has 2,504 stars, 621 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. Cube leads on adoption by 745% (21,147 vs 2,504 stars). Cube is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; API is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. Cube has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, API 25%. Cube 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
| Cube | API | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-02-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 621 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Cube if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick API if
- You want the API feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and API fits your workflow better
About Cube
Website • Docs • Examples • Blog • Slack • X Cube Core is the open source semantic layer. Define metrics, dimensions, joins, and access rules once in code, then expose them through SQL, REST, and GraphQL APIs to anything downstream — BI tools, custom applications, or AI agents. Cube Core is headless: it doesn't ship a UI, so you can build the analytics experience that fits your product. Cube Core works with all SQL data sources, including cloud data warehouses like Snowflake, Databricks, and BigQuery; query engines like Presto and Amazon Athena; and application databases like Postgres. It has a built in…
About API
Welcome to disease.sh An open API for disease related statistics Check out our homepage and sign up for our newsletter here Recommended by Postman Disease.sh is recommended by Postman here Run through databar.ai If you don't know how to use APIs, you can use disease.sh without code through the databar.ai platform. Documentation Disease.sh Documentation can be found here Installation Without Docker Redis 1. Download redis from 2. Start redis server using redis server Project 1. Fork and clone the git repository 2. In the new folder you will find a example.env file, duplicate it and rename it to .env only. 3. in…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cube or API more popular?
Cube has 21,147 GitHub stars and API has 2,504. Cube has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cube and API free?
Both are open source. Cube has no licence declared in this registry, and API is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Cube and API?
Cube is written in Rust and API in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Cube or API?
Choose Cube if you want the larger community (21,147 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose API if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.