head to head · open source
herdr vs lapce
herdr has 43,293 GitHub stars, 3,416 forks, 337 open issues and last shipped today. lapce has 38,904 stars, 1,347 forks, 901 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. herdr leads on adoption by 11% (43,293 vs 38,904 stars). herdr is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; lapce is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. herdr has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, lapce 3%. herdr was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (developer-tools, rust), 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.
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Side by side
| herdr | lapce | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 39K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick herdr if
- You weight community size — 43K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick lapce if
- You want the lapce feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and lapce fits your workflow better
About herdr
herdr is a terminal first runtime for coding agents — a single Rust binary that owns the terminals in which tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and Grok run, aimed at developers who keep agents working across local and remote machines and want those sessions to survive a lost SSH connection or a closed client.
read the full herdr overview →
About lapce
Lapce is an Apache 2.0 licensed, native graphical code editor written in pure Rust for developers who want fast text editing, built in language intelligence, Vim style modal editing, and remote development support inside one application rather than assembled from a base editor plus a stack of extensions.
read the full lapce overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is herdr or lapce more popular?
herdr has 43,293 GitHub stars and lapce has 38,904. herdr has the larger community by that measure.
Are herdr and lapce free?
Both are open source. herdr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and lapce under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between herdr and lapce?
herdr is written in Rust and lapce in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, herdr or lapce?
Choose herdr if you want the larger community (43,293 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lapce if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.