head to head · open source
gentle-shell vs agent-manager
gentle-shell has 1,124 GitHub stars, 160 forks, 369 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agent-manager has 531 stars, 55 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gentle-shell leads on adoption by 112% (1,124 vs 531 stars). gentle-shell is written in TypeScript under MIT; agent-manager is written in Go under Apache-2.0. gentle-shell has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, agent-manager 10%. gentle-shell was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-agents, code-review, developer-tools), 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
| gentle-shell | agent-manager | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.1K | ★ 531 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-27 | 2026-09-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 160 | ⑂ 55 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gentle-shell if
- You weight community size — 1.1K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick agent-manager if
- You want the agent-manager feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and agent-manager fits your workflow better
About gentle-shell
gentle shell is a senior architect development harness for the Pi platform that turns a terminal coding agent into a controlled workspace with spec driven development, focused subagents, strict TDD evidence, review guardrails, and skill discovery.
read the full gentle-shell overview →
About agent-manager
agent manager is an Apache 2.0, Go based terminal interface that runs every AI coding agent a developer already has side by side — Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Grok, Gemini CLI, Pi, Command Code, and Hermes Agent — and gathers their live status, quick prompts, worktrees, and diff review into a single tmux TUI.
read the full agent-manager overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gentle-shell or agent-manager more popular?
gentle-shell has 1,124 GitHub stars and agent-manager has 531. gentle-shell has the larger community by that measure.
Are gentle-shell and agent-manager free?
Both are open source. gentle-shell is licensed under MIT and agent-manager under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gentle-shell and agent-manager?
gentle-shell is written in TypeScript and agent-manager 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, gentle-shell or agent-manager?
Choose gentle-shell if you want the larger community (1,124 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose agent-manager if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.