head to head · open source
haystack vs viewflow
haystack has 26,531 GitHub stars, 3,144 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. viewflow has 2,874 stars, 413 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. haystack leads on adoption by 823% (26,531 vs 2,874 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; viewflow is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. haystack has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, viewflow 14%. 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 | viewflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 413 |
| 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 viewflow if
- You want the viewflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and viewflow 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 viewflow
Viewflow is reusable workflow library for Django. It lives in Python and Django ecosystem, category Infrastructure & Operations / Orchestration & Scheduling. It targets low code business application building. It gives ready made components for user management, workflows, and reporting. It ships as one package. Each part works on its own, but parts also work together. Project homepage is viewflow.io. Concrete problem: business applications need process state, form handling, reporting, and integration with existing systems. Custom Django code often repeats this plumbing. Viewflow provides base classes, BPMN process…
read the full viewflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or viewflow more popular?
haystack has 26,531 GitHub stars and viewflow has 2,874. haystack has the larger community by that measure.
Are haystack and viewflow free?
Both are open source. haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0 and viewflow under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between haystack and viewflow?
haystack is written in Python and viewflow 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, haystack or viewflow?
Choose haystack if you want the larger community (26,531 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose viewflow if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.