head to head · open source
deck.gl vs kepler.gl
deck.gl has 14,732 GitHub stars, 2,297 forks, 532 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kepler.gl has 12,078 stars, 1,963 forks, 452 open issues and last shipped yesterday. deck.gl leads on adoption by 22% (14,732 vs 12,078 stars). deck.gl is written in TypeScript under MIT; kepler.gl is written in TypeScript under MIT. deck.gl has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, kepler.gl 16%. deck.gl was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (data-visualization, visualization), 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
| deck.gl | kepler.gl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick deck.gl if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kepler.gl if
- You want the kepler.gl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and kepler.gl fits your workflow better
About deck.gl
deck.gl Website GPU powered, highly performant large scale data visualization deck.gl is designed to simplify high performance, WebGL2/WebGPU based visualization of large data sets. Users can quickly get impressive visual results with minimal effort by composing existing layers, or leverage deck.gl's extensible architecture to address custom needs. deck.gl maps data (usually an array of JSON objects) into a stack of visual layers e.g. icons, polygons, texts; and look at them with views : e.g. map, first person, orthographic. deck.gl handles a number of challenges out of the box: Performant rendering and updating…
read the full deck.gl overview →
About kepler.gl
kepler.gl Website Demo App Docs [Kepler.gl][web] is a data agnostic, high performance web based application for visual exploration of large scale geolocation data sets. Built on top of MapLibre GL and deck.gl, kepler.gl can render millions of points representing thousands of trips and perform spatial aggregations on the fly. Kepler.gl is also a React component that uses Redux to manage its state and data flow. It can be embedded into other React Redux applications and is highly customizable. For information on how to embed kepler.gl in your app take a look at the documentation. Links [Website][web] [Demo][demo…
read the full kepler.gl overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is deck.gl or kepler.gl more popular?
deck.gl has 14,732 GitHub stars and kepler.gl has 12,078. deck.gl has the larger community by that measure.
Are deck.gl and kepler.gl free?
Both are open source. deck.gl is licensed under MIT and kepler.gl under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between deck.gl and kepler.gl?
deck.gl is written in TypeScript and kepler.gl 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, deck.gl or kepler.gl?
Choose deck.gl if you want the larger community (14,732 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kepler.gl if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.