head to head · open source
haystack vs dapr
haystack has 26,820 GitHub stars, 3,332 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dapr has 26,154 stars, 2,170 forks, 452 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. haystack leads on adoption by 3% (26,820 vs 26,154 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; dapr is written in Go under Apache-2.0. haystack has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, dapr 8%. haystack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-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
| haystack | dapr | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 26K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-23 | 2026-10-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick haystack if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dapr if
- You want the dapr feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dapr fits your workflow better
About haystack
🎉🎊✨ Haystack 3.0 is out! ✨🎊🎉 Read the announcement here! 🥳 🎈 🎆 🪅 🎇 🍾 🥂 🎁 🌈 Haystack is an open source AI orchestration framework for building production ready LLM applications in Python. Design modular pipelines and agent workflows with explicit control over retrieval, routing, memory, and generation. Build scalable RAG systems, multimodal applications, semantic search, question answering, and autonomous agents, all in a transparent architecture that lets you experiment, customize deeply, and deploy with confidence. Table of Contents Installation Documentation Features Haystack Enterprise: Support &…
read the full haystack overview →
About dapr
The runtime for durable execution, AI agents, and secure distributed applications [![Go Report][go report badge]][go report url] [![OpenSSF][openssf badge]][openssf url] [![Docker Pulls][docker badge]][docker url] [![Build Status][actions badge]][actions url] [![Test Status][e2e badge]][e2e url] [![Code Coverage][codecov badge]][codecov url] [![License: Apache 2.0][apache badge]][apache url] [![FOSSA Status][fossa badge]][fossa url] [![TODOs][todo badge]][todo url] [![Good First Issues][gfi badge]][gfi url] [![discord][discord badge]][discord url] [![YouTube][youtube badge]][youtube link] [![Bluesky][bluesky…
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or dapr more popular?
haystack has 26,820 GitHub stars and dapr has 26,154. haystack has the larger community by that measure.
Are haystack and dapr free?
Both are open source. haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dapr under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between haystack and dapr?
haystack is written in Python and dapr 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, haystack or dapr?
Choose haystack if you want the larger community (26,820 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dapr if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.