head to head · open source
herdr vs Onlook
herdr has 40,874 GitHub stars, 3,128 forks, 337 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Onlook has 26,814 stars, 2,108 forks, 380 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. herdr leads on adoption by 52% (40,874 vs 26,814 stars). herdr is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Onlook is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. herdr has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Onlook 8%. herdr was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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 | Onlook | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 27K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-26 | 2026-08-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 2.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick herdr if
- You weight community size — 41K 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 Onlook if
- You want the Onlook 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 Onlook 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 Onlook
Onlook is an open source, Apache 2.0 visual editor for Next.js and TailwindCSS projects that lets designers and developers edit a running React app in the browser while the underlying code changes in real time.
read the full Onlook overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is herdr or Onlook more popular?
herdr has 40,874 GitHub stars and Onlook has 26,814. herdr has the larger community by that measure.
Are herdr and Onlook free?
Both are open source. herdr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Onlook under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between herdr and Onlook?
herdr is written in Rust and Onlook 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, herdr or Onlook?
Choose herdr if you want the larger community (40,874 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Onlook if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.