head to head · open source
effect vs gf
effect has 16,097 GitHub stars, 747 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gf has 13,272 stars, 1,719 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped yesterday. effect leads on adoption by 21% (16,097 vs 13,272 stars). effect is written in TypeScript under MIT; gf is written in Go under MIT. effect has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, gf 13%. effect was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (opentelemetry), 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
| effect | gf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 747 | ⑂ 1.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick effect if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gf if
- You want the gf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gf fits your workflow better
About effect
Effect is a TypeScript library for building robust, maintainable, type safe, and production grade applications. It lives in the TypeScript and JavaScript ecosystem, distributed as the core effect package alongside a monorepo of integration packages that extend it. The project is MIT licensed, has been developed for roughly seven years, and currently ships Effect V4 as a release candidate, with the main branch holding v4 development and the v3 branch retaining the previous line.
read the full effect overview →
About gf
GoFrame is an MIT licensed, production ready application framework for the Go programming language that provides a full stack toolkit — HTTP server, ORM, logging, tracing, and command line scaffolding — in a single dependency, aimed at Go teams that want one coherent framework instead of assembling many separate libraries.
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Frequently asked questions
Is effect or gf more popular?
effect has 16,097 GitHub stars and gf has 13,272. effect has the larger community by that measure.
Are effect and gf free?
Both are open source. effect is licensed under MIT and gf under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between effect and gf?
effect is written in TypeScript and gf 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, effect or gf?
Choose effect if you want the larger community (16,097 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gf if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.