head to head · open source
ECC vs carbon-now-cli
ECC has 261,896 GitHub stars, 39,186 forks, 228 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. carbon-now-cli has 6,034 stars, 126 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. ECC leads on adoption by 4,240% (261,896 vs 6,034 stars). ECC is written in JavaScript under MIT; carbon-now-cli is written in TypeScript under MIT. ECC has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, carbon-now-cli 2%. ECC 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
| ECC | carbon-now-cli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 262K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 39K | ⑂ 126 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ECC if
- You weight community size — 262K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick carbon-now-cli if
- You want the carbon-now-cli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and carbon-now-cli fits your workflow better
About ECC
ECC is an MIT licensed open source agent harness performance optimization system that gives AI coding agents a coordinated engineering workflow — plan, test, implement, review, verify, remember, improve — for developers working in Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, and other harnesses.
About carbon-now-cli
carbon now cli is a TypeScript command line tool that turns source code into Carbon style images straight from the terminal, built for developers who need presentable code snippets for docs, slides, and social posts without opening a browser.
read the full carbon-now-cli overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ECC or carbon-now-cli more popular?
ECC has 261,896 GitHub stars and carbon-now-cli has 6,034. ECC has the larger community by that measure.
Are ECC and carbon-now-cli free?
Both are open source. ECC is licensed under MIT and carbon-now-cli under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ECC and carbon-now-cli?
ECC is written in JavaScript and carbon-now-cli 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, ECC or carbon-now-cli?
Choose ECC if you want the larger community (261,896 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose carbon-now-cli if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.