head to head · open source
gentle-shell vs sno-station
gentle-shell has 1,283 GitHub stars, 194 forks, 369 open issues and last shipped today. sno-station has 626 stars, 363 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped today. gentle-shell leads on adoption by 105% (1,283 vs 626 stars). gentle-shell is written in TypeScript under MIT; sno-station is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. gentle-shell has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, sno-station 58%. sno-station was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (agent-skills, ai-agents, code-review, coding-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
| gentle-shell | sno-station | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.3K | ★ 626 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-12 | 2026-10-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 194 | ⑂ 363 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gentle-shell if
- You weight community size — 1.3K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sno-station if
- You want the sno-station feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sno-station 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 sno-station
Sno Station is open source software that turns the AI coding agents you already run — Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Hermes Agent and OpenClaw — into one squad sharing a single encrypted memory on your own machine.
read the full sno-station overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gentle-shell or sno-station more popular?
gentle-shell has 1,283 GitHub stars and sno-station has 626. gentle-shell has the larger community by that measure.
Are gentle-shell and sno-station free?
Both are open source. gentle-shell is licensed under MIT and sno-station under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gentle-shell and sno-station?
gentle-shell is written in TypeScript and sno-station 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, gentle-shell or sno-station?
Choose gentle-shell if you want the larger community (1,283 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose sno-station if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.