head to head · open source
compose vs haystack
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars, 5,817 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. haystack has 26,531 stars, 3,144 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. compose leads on adoption by 44% (38,175 vs 26,531 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, haystack 12%. compose 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
| compose | haystack | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 27K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick compose if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick haystack if
- You want the haystack 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 haystack fits your workflow better
About compose
Docker Compose is an Apache 2.0 licensed Go tool that defines and runs multi container applications on Docker from a single Compose file, aimed at developers and operators who need several containers to start together as one isolated application.
read the full compose overview →
About haystack
Haystack is an open source AI orchestration framework written in Python under the Apache 2.0 licence, for building context engineered, production ready large language model applications as modular pipelines and agent workflows with explicit control over retrieval, routing, memory, and generation, and it is aimed at developers and teams building scalable agents, retrieval augmented generation, multimodal applications, semantic search, question answering, and conversational systems.
read the full haystack overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is compose or haystack more popular?
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars and haystack has 26,531. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and haystack free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and haystack under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and haystack?
compose is written in Go and haystack 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, compose or haystack?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,175 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose haystack if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.