head to head · open source
herdr vs WezTerm
herdr has 39,695 GitHub stars, 2,992 forks, 337 open issues and last shipped today. WezTerm has 28,957 stars, 1,747 forks, 1,849 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. herdr leads on adoption by 37% (39,695 vs 28,957 stars). herdr is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; WezTerm is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. herdr has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, WezTerm 6%. herdr was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | WezTerm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 29K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick herdr if
- You weight community size — 40K 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 WezTerm if
- You want the WezTerm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and WezTerm 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 WezTerm
WezTerm is a GPU accelerated, cross platform terminal emulator and multiplexer written by @wez in Rust, intended for developers and terminal users who want one terminal configuration and one multiplexing model across every operating system they work on.
read the full WezTerm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is herdr or WezTerm more popular?
herdr has 39,695 GitHub stars and WezTerm has 28,957. herdr has the larger community by that measure.
Are herdr and WezTerm free?
Both are open source. herdr is licensed under Apache-2.0, and WezTerm has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between herdr and WezTerm?
herdr is written in Rust and WezTerm 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 WezTerm?
Choose herdr if you want the larger community (39,695 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose WezTerm if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.