head to head · open source
dots vs ketch
dots has 32,357 GitHub stars, 4,739 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. ketch has 740 stars, 44 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. dots leads on adoption by 4,273% (32,357 vs 740 stars). dots is written in TypeScript under MIT; ketch is written in Go under MIT. dots has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, ketch 6%. dots was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), 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
| dots | ketch | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 740 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-31 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.7K | ⑂ 44 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dots if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ketch if
- You want the ketch feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ketch fits your workflow better
About dots
dots Every AI agent is a model and a browser. You can swap the model with one flag. The browser is what the website sees. Windows, in PowerShell: Linux: Then open The conversation on the left, the browser on the right, live. It all comes down to the browser When a web agent fails, the model is rarely why. The page never loaded, a challenge appeared, the login expired, the click did not land. All of that happens in the browser, before the model gets to think. So dots is built around one: A real Firefox engine, patched in C++. The fingerprint is decided inside the engine, not painted over with JavaScript that a…
About ketch
ketch A stateless CLI for web search, code search, library docs, and scraping — one binary, no daemon, no API server to run. Why ketch Most research tooling for agents means wiring up several provider SDKs, each with its own auth and response shape. ketch collapses that into one binary with three research surfaces: ketch search — web search, no API key required (Brave, DuckDuckGo, SearXNG, Exa, Firecrawl, Keenable, Tavily, Parallel, SerpBase, Serply, or You.com) ketch code — grep real OSS source across public repos (Grep, Sourcegraph, or GitHub Code Search) ketch docs — curated, version aware library…
read the full ketch overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dots or ketch more popular?
dots has 32,357 GitHub stars and ketch has 740. dots has the larger community by that measure.
Are dots and ketch free?
Both are open source. dots is licensed under MIT and ketch under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dots and ketch?
dots is written in TypeScript and ketch in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, dots or ketch?
Choose dots if you want the larger community (32,357 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ketch if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.