head to head · open source
haystack vs kubero
haystack has 26,531 GitHub stars, 3,144 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kubero has 4,419 stars, 213 forks, 128 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. haystack leads on adoption by 500% (26,531 vs 4,419 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; kubero is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. haystack has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, kubero 5%. haystack 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
| haystack | kubero | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 213 |
| 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 kubero if
- You want the kubero feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and kubero fits your workflow better
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 →
About kubero
Kubero is a self hosted Platform as a Service for the Kubernetes ecosystem. It is written in TypeScript and released under the GPL 3.0 license. It gives developers a web based control layer for deploying applications on Kubernetes without specialized platform knowledge. It follows twelve factor principles and can run services from existing container images or source code.
read the full kubero overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or kubero more popular?
haystack has 26,531 GitHub stars and kubero has 4,419. haystack has the larger community by that measure.
Are haystack and kubero free?
Both are open source. haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kubero under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between haystack and kubero?
haystack is written in Python and kubero in TypeScript. 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 kubero?
Choose haystack if you want the larger community (26,531 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kubero if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.