head to head · open source
herdr vs runtime
herdr has 42,341 GitHub stars, 3,296 forks, 337 open issues and last shipped yesterday. runtime has 1,677 stars, 461 forks, 212 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. herdr leads on adoption by 2,425% (42,341 vs 1,677 stars). herdr is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; runtime is written in Go under Apache-2.0. herdr has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, runtime 27%. herdr was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai-agents, devtools), 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 | runtime | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-04 | 2026-10-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 461 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick herdr if
- You weight community size — 42K 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 runtime if
- You want the runtime 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 runtime 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 runtime
E2B Runtime is the open source Go backend — control plane, Firecracker orchestrator, in VM agent, edge router, and template builder — that powers E2B's AI agent cloud and can be run by anyone on their own hardware.
read the full runtime overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is herdr or runtime more popular?
herdr has 42,341 GitHub stars and runtime has 1,677. herdr has the larger community by that measure.
Are herdr and runtime free?
Both are open source. herdr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and runtime under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between herdr and runtime?
herdr is written in Rust and runtime 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, herdr or runtime?
Choose herdr if you want the larger community (42,341 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose runtime if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.