head to head · open source
haystack vs werf
haystack has 26,531 GitHub stars, 3,144 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. werf has 4,721 stars, 239 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. haystack leads on adoption by 462% (26,531 vs 4,721 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; werf is written in Go under Apache-2.0. haystack has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, werf 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 | werf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 239 |
| 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 werf if
- You want the werf 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 werf 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 werf
werf is a CNCF Sandbox command line tool, written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0, that implements full cycle CI/CD to Kubernetes for teams that already build container images and deploy with Helm but want one tool to carry an application from build through deploy, release artifacts and container registry cleanup.
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or werf more popular?
haystack has 26,531 GitHub stars and werf has 4,721. haystack has the larger community by that measure.
Are haystack and werf free?
Both are open source. haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0 and werf under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between haystack and werf?
haystack is written in Python and werf 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 werf?
Choose haystack if you want the larger community (26,531 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose werf if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.