head to head · open source
haystack vs donutbrowser
haystack has 26,924 GitHub stars, 3,388 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. donutbrowser has 4,213 stars, 439 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. haystack leads on adoption by 539% (26,924 vs 4,213 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; donutbrowser is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. haystack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, donutbrowser 10%. haystack 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
| haystack | donutbrowser | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 439 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick haystack if
- You weight community size — 27K 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 donutbrowser if
- You want the donutbrowser feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and donutbrowser fits your workflow better
About haystack
🎉🎊✨ Haystack 3.0 is out! ✨🎊🎉 Read the announcement here! 🥳 🎈 🎆 🪅 🎇 🍾 🥂 🎁 🌈 Haystack is an open source AI orchestration framework for building production ready LLM applications in Python. Design modular pipelines and agent workflows with explicit control over retrieval, routing, memory, and generation. Build scalable RAG systems, multimodal applications, semantic search, question answering, and autonomous agents, all in a transparent architecture that lets you experiment, customize deeply, and deploy with confidence. Table of Contents Installation Documentation Features Haystack Enterprise: Support &…
read the full haystack overview →
About donutbrowser
Donut Browser Open Source Anti Detect Browser donutbrowser.com Features Unlimited browser profiles: each fully isolated with its own fingerprint, cookies, extensions, and data Anti detect Chromium engine: powered by Wayfern, a privacy focused Chromium fork whose fingerprint spoofing is not detected by Cloudflare, reCaptcha v3, or other browser fingerprinting and anti bot services DNS AdBlocker: block ads, trackers, and other unwanted content with per profile DNS blocking Proxy support: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4, SOCKS5 per profile, with dynamic proxy URLs VPN support: WireGuard configs per profile Local API & MCP…
read the full donutbrowser overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or donutbrowser more popular?
haystack has 26,924 GitHub stars and donutbrowser has 4,213. haystack has the larger community by that measure.
Are haystack and donutbrowser free?
Both are open source. haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0 and donutbrowser under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between haystack and donutbrowser?
haystack is written in Python and donutbrowser in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, haystack or donutbrowser?
Choose haystack if you want the larger community (26,924 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose donutbrowser if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.