head to head · open source
dagster vs deep-searcher
dagster has 16,183 GitHub stars, 2,296 forks, 2,589 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. deep-searcher has 8,273 stars, 804 forks, 55 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. dagster leads on adoption by 96% (16,183 vs 8,273 stars). dagster is written in Python under Apache-2.0; deep-searcher is written in Python under Apache-2.0. dagster has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, deep-searcher 10%. dagster 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
| dagster | deep-searcher | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 8.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2025-11-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 804 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dagster if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick deep-searcher if
- You want the deep-searcher feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and deep-searcher fits your workflow better
About dagster
Dagster is a cloud native data pipeline orchestrator written in Python and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, built for data engineers, data scientists, and machine learning teams who declare the tables, data sets, models, and reports their pipelines should produce and need those assets tested, observable, and kept up to date from local development through production.
read the full dagster overview →
About deep-searcher
DeepSearcher is an open source deep research tool that combines large language models with vector databases to search, evaluate, and reason over private data, producing accurate answers and comprehensive reports. Written in Python and released under the Apache 2.0 license, it lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem as a machine learning infrastructure project, built around agentic retrieval augmented generation and the Zilliz/Milvus vector search stack. The project has been on GitHub for two years, carries 8265 stars and 803 forks, and had its most recent push on 19 November 2025.
read the full deep-searcher overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dagster or deep-searcher more popular?
dagster has 16,183 GitHub stars and deep-searcher has 8,273. dagster has the larger community by that measure.
Are dagster and deep-searcher free?
Both are open source. dagster is licensed under Apache-2.0 and deep-searcher under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dagster and deep-searcher?
dagster is written in Python and deep-searcher 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, dagster or deep-searcher?
Choose dagster if you want the larger community (16,183 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose deep-searcher if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.