head to head · open source
dbt vs growth-lab
dbt has 13,880 GitHub stars, 2,570 forks, 1,534 open issues and last shipped today. growth-lab has 1,988 stars, 170 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. dbt leads on adoption by 598% (13,880 vs 1,988 stars). dbt is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; growth-lab is written in Python under Apache-2.0. dbt has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, growth-lab 9%. dbt 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
| dbt | growth-lab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-08-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 170 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dbt if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick growth-lab if
- You want the growth-lab 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 growth-lab fits your workflow better
About dbt
dbt is an open source data transformation framework that lets data analysts and engineers transform their data using the same practices software engineers use to build applications, and it is aimed at analytics teams that model data inside a warehouse.
About growth-lab
Growth Lab is an open source Python growth tool in the business software and marketing customer engagement ecosystem. It understands a product, fetches needed data, researches the market, executes campaign actions, and reviews results to improve the next growth round. It runs inside Codex or Claude Code as the application runtime.
read the full growth-lab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dbt or growth-lab more popular?
dbt has 13,880 GitHub stars and growth-lab has 1,988. dbt has the larger community by that measure.
Are dbt and growth-lab free?
Both are open source. dbt is licensed under Apache-2.0 and growth-lab under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dbt and growth-lab?
dbt is written in Rust and growth-lab 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, dbt or growth-lab?
Choose dbt if you want the larger community (13,880 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose growth-lab if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.