head to head · open source
haystack vs livecontext-ce
haystack has 26,559 GitHub stars, 3,153 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. livecontext-ce has 502 stars, 59 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. haystack leads on adoption by 5,191% (26,559 vs 502 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; livecontext-ce is written in Java under AGPL-3.0. haystack has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, livecontext-ce 12%. haystack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (agent-framework, agents, ai, 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| haystack | livecontext-ce | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 502 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 59 |
| 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 livecontext-ce if
- You want the livecontext-ce feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and livecontext-ce 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 livecontext-ce
LiveContext CE is the self hosted, AGPL 3.0 Community Edition of the LiveContext AI automation platform, a single Docker deployed service where a team describes a job in chat and gets back a readable workflow, scoped AI agents and a small app the team actually uses.
read the full livecontext-ce overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Orchestration & Scheduling projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Orchestration & Scheduling field.
Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or livecontext-ce more popular?
haystack has 26,559 GitHub stars and livecontext-ce has 502. haystack has the larger community by that measure.
Are haystack and livecontext-ce free?
Both are open source. haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0 and livecontext-ce under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between haystack and livecontext-ce?
haystack is written in Python and livecontext-ce in Java. 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 livecontext-ce?
Choose haystack if you want the larger community (26,559 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose livecontext-ce if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.