head to head · open source
haystack vs werf
haystack has 26,913 GitHub stars, 3,384 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. werf has 4,739 stars, 243 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. haystack leads on adoption by 468% (26,913 vs 4,739 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; werf is written in Go under Apache-2.0. haystack has attracted 13% 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 243 |
| 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 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 werf
werf is a CNCF Sandbox CLI tool to implement full cycle CI/CD to Kubernetes easily. werf integrates into your CI system and leverages familiar and reliable technologies, such as Git, Dockerfile, Helm, and Buildah. What makes werf special: Complete application lifecycle management : build and publish container images, test, deploy an application to Kubernetes, distribute release artifacts and clean up the container registry. Ease of use : use Dockerfiles and Helm chart for configuration and let werf handle all the rest. Advanced features : automatic build caching and content based tagging, enhanced resource…
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or werf more popular?
haystack has 26,913 GitHub stars and werf has 4,739. 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 (26,913 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.