head to head · open source
graphrag vs PixelRAG
graphrag has 36,035 GitHub stars, 3,794 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PixelRAG has 10,029 stars, 863 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. graphrag leads on adoption by 259% (36,035 vs 10,029 stars). graphrag is written in Python under MIT; PixelRAG is written in Python under Apache-2.0. graphrag has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, PixelRAG 9%. graphrag was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (rag), 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
| graphrag | PixelRAG | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 10K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 863 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick graphrag if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick PixelRAG if
- You want the PixelRAG feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and PixelRAG fits your workflow better
About graphrag
GraphRAG is a modular, Python based, MIT licensed data pipeline and transformation suite from Microsoft Research that uses large language models to extract structured data from unstructured text, then exploits the resulting knowledge graph to form targeted context for question answering over private data.
read the full graphrag overview →
About PixelRAG
PixelRAG is the official open source codebase for the paper "PIXELRAG: Web Screenshots Beat Text for Retrieval Augmented Generation," an Apache 2.0 Python project from Berkeley SkyLab, BAIR and Berkeley NLP that renders web pages, PDFs and images to screenshot tiles and retrieves over those images instead of parsed text, built for RAG engineers, agent developers and researchers who need tables, charts, diagrams and layout to survive retrieval.
read the full PixelRAG overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is graphrag or PixelRAG more popular?
graphrag has 36,035 GitHub stars and PixelRAG has 10,029. graphrag has the larger community by that measure.
Are graphrag and PixelRAG free?
Both are open source. graphrag is licensed under MIT and PixelRAG under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between graphrag and PixelRAG?
graphrag is written in Python and PixelRAG in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, graphrag or PixelRAG?
Choose graphrag if you want the larger community (36,035 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose PixelRAG if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.