head to head · open source
realtime vs helix-foundry
realtime has 7,670 GitHub stars, 480 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. helix-foundry has 1,683 stars, 257 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped yesterday. realtime leads on adoption by 356% (7,670 vs 1,683 stars). realtime is written in Elixir under Apache-2.0; helix-foundry is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. realtime has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, helix-foundry 15%. helix-foundry 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
| realtime | helix-foundry | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.7K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Elixir | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 480 | ⑂ 257 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick realtime if
- You weight community size — 7.7K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick helix-foundry if
- You want the helix-foundry feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and helix-foundry fits your workflow better
About realtime
Supabase Realtime Send ephemeral messages, track and synchronize shared state, and listen to Postgres changes all over WebSockets. Examples · Request Features · Report Bugs Status This repository focuses on version 2 but you can still access the previous version's code and Docker image. For the latest Docker images go to The codebase is under heavy development and the documentation is constantly evolving. Give it a try and let us know what you think by creating an issue. Watch releases of this repo to get notified of updates. And give us a star if you like it! Overview What is this? This is a server built with…
read the full realtime overview →
About helix-foundry
Helix Foundry Connect your company's data, let an agent draft an ontology over it, and load it into HelixDB as one connected graph you can explore and ask questions of. Connect PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon S3, Stripe, PostHog, WorkOS, GitHub, Linear, Granola and Cal.com, and upload documents (Markdown, text, PDF) and table files (CSV, TSV, JSON, JSON Lines, Parquet). An agent drafts the ontology: types, links, the tables and documents each comes from, and rules. You review it, edit it and make a version current. A load writes the version into HelixDB. Explore it as a graph or as records, follow every value back to…
read the full helix-foundry overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is realtime or helix-foundry more popular?
realtime has 7,670 GitHub stars and helix-foundry has 1,683. realtime has the larger community by that measure.
Are realtime and helix-foundry free?
Both are open source. realtime is licensed under Apache-2.0 and helix-foundry under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between realtime and helix-foundry?
realtime is written in Elixir and helix-foundry 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, realtime or helix-foundry?
Choose realtime if you want the larger community (7,670 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose helix-foundry if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.