head to head · open source
ego-lite vs kysely
ego-lite has 16,117 GitHub stars, 844 forks, 169 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kysely has 14,233 stars, 444 forks, 173 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ego-lite leads on adoption by 13% (16,117 vs 14,233 stars). ego-lite is written in JavaScript under MIT; kysely is written in TypeScript under MIT. ego-lite has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, kysely 3%. kysely was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| ego-lite | kysely | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 844 | ⑂ 444 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ego-lite if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kysely if
- You want the kysely feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and kysely fits your workflow better
About ego-lite
ego lite is an MIT licensed browser from citrolabs that lets a person and their AI agents drive the same browser in parallel, aimed at developers who want Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or a custom agent CLI to automate real, logged in web pages without surrendering the tabs they are using.
read the full ego-lite overview →
About kysely
Kysely is a type safe TypeScript SQL query builder for Node.js, Deno, Bun, and the browser. It provides a fluent API to construct and execute type safe SQL queries, preventing runtime errors from invalid column names or incorrect data types. The core problem it solves is eliminating the fragility of raw SQL strings and the lack of type safety in many ORMs within the TypeScript ecosystem.
read the full kysely overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ego-lite or kysely more popular?
ego-lite has 16,117 GitHub stars and kysely has 14,233. ego-lite has the larger community by that measure.
Are ego-lite and kysely free?
Both are open source. ego-lite is licensed under MIT and kysely under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ego-lite and kysely?
ego-lite is written in JavaScript and kysely 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, ego-lite or kysely?
Choose ego-lite if you want the larger community (16,117 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kysely if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.