head to head · open source
docetl vs sycamore
docetl has 4,101 GitHub stars, 443 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. sycamore has 608 stars, 72 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. docetl leads on adoption by 575% (4,101 vs 608 stars). docetl is written in Python under MIT; sycamore is written in Python under Apache-2.0. docetl has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, sycamore 12%. docetl was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (etl, 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
| docetl | sycamore | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.1K | ★ 608 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-05 | 2026-08-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 443 | ⑂ 72 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick docetl if
- You weight community size — 4.1K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sycamore if
- You want the sycamore 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 sycamore fits your workflow better
About docetl
DocETL is a Python system for agentic LLM powered data processing and ETL. It lives in the data engineering and document processing ecosystem, where pipelines must turn structured records and unstructured documents into queryable tables. Users describe each operation in natural language, and DocETL provides operators such as map, reduce, and filter, then orchestrates them across the data.
read the full docetl overview →
About sycamore
Sycamore is an open source, AI powered document processing engine for ETL, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), LLM applications, and analytics on unstructured data, aimed at Python data engineers and AI developers who must turn reports, presentations, transcripts, and manuals into clean, chunked, searchable records.
read the full sycamore overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is docetl or sycamore more popular?
docetl has 4,101 GitHub stars and sycamore has 608. docetl has the larger community by that measure.
Are docetl and sycamore free?
Both are open source. docetl is licensed under MIT and sycamore under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between docetl and sycamore?
docetl is written in Python and sycamore 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, docetl or sycamore?
Choose docetl if you want the larger community (4,101 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose sycamore if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.