head to head · open source
Khoj vs iwe
Khoj has 38,031 GitHub stars, 2,537 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. iwe has 1,816 stars, 94 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Khoj leads on adoption by 1,994% (38,031 vs 1,816 stars). Khoj is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; iwe is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Khoj has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, iwe 5%. iwe 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
| Khoj | iwe | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-02 | 2026-11-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 94 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Khoj if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick iwe if
- You want the iwe 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 iwe fits your workflow better
About Khoj
Your AI second brain 📑 Docs • 🌐 Web • 🔥 App • 💬 Discord • ✍🏽 Blog 🎁 New Meet 🌶️ Pipali our open source AI coworker that runs on your computer. Read about Khoj's excellent performance on modern retrieval and reasoning benchmarks. Overview Khoj is a personal AI app to extend your capabilities. It smoothly scales up from an on device personal AI to a cloud scale enterprise AI. Chat with any local or online LLM (e.g llama3, qwen, gemma, mistral, gpt, claude, gemini, deepseek). Get answers from the internet and your docs (including image, pdf, markdown, org mode, word, notion files). Access it from your…
About iwe
IWE Memory system for you and your AI agents Turn your thinking into queryable context IWE turns a directory of markdown files into a knowledge graph — a connected structure you browse from your editor and your AI queries from the command line. Same files, same links, two interfaces. No cloud, no database, no lock in. Version everything with git. IWE is for people who want database style queries on their notes — "all drafts under this subtree", "every accepted decision in Q1" — without moving them into an actual database. Write in Markdown , structure with links, give AI agents the tools to navigate your…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Khoj or iwe more popular?
Khoj has 38,031 GitHub stars and iwe has 1,816. Khoj has the larger community by that measure.
Are Khoj and iwe free?
Both are open source. Khoj is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and iwe under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Khoj and iwe?
Khoj is written in Python and iwe 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, Khoj or iwe?
Choose Khoj if you want the larger community (38,031 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose iwe if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.