head to head · open source
gradle vs sandboxd
gradle has 18,847 GitHub stars, 5,335 forks, 3,494 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sandboxd has 946 stars, 60 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. gradle leads on adoption by 1,892% (18,847 vs 946 stars). gradle is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0; sandboxd is written in Go under MIT. gradle has attracted 28% as many forks as stars, sandboxd 6%. gradle 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
| gradle | sandboxd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 946 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Groovy | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 60 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gradle if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sandboxd if
- You want the sandboxd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sandboxd fits your workflow better
About gradle
Gradle is an open source build automation tool distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, hosted at gradle.org and developed in the Groovy language. It is described as a highly scalable build automation tool designed to handle everything from large, multi project enterprise builds to quick development tasks across various languages. Its modular, performance oriented architecture integrates with development environments, and the project has grown over roughly seventeen years to a repository with 18,841 stars, 5,335 forks, and 3,494 open issues. It lives in the JVM tooling ecosystem, with topics covering build tool,…
read the full gradle overview →
About sandboxd
sandboxd is an open source, self hosted AI app builder that runs a coding agent inside isolated sandboxes on your own server and gives every generated app its own live preview URL, and it is built for developers and teams who want the prompt to app workflow of hosted builders without giving up their infrastructure, code, or data.
read the full sandboxd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gradle or sandboxd more popular?
gradle has 18,847 GitHub stars and sandboxd has 946. gradle has the larger community by that measure.
Are gradle and sandboxd free?
Both are open source. gradle is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sandboxd under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gradle and sandboxd?
gradle is written in Groovy and sandboxd 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, gradle or sandboxd?
Choose gradle if you want the larger community (18,847 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sandboxd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.