head to head · open source
Jan vs whirl
Jan has 44,880 GitHub stars, 3,081 forks, 521 open issues and last shipped yesterday. whirl has 505 stars, 48 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Jan leads on adoption by 8,787% (44,880 vs 505 stars). Jan is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; whirl is written in TypeScript under MIT. Jan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, whirl 10%. Jan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (llm, self-hosted), 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
| Jan | whirl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 505 |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-10 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 48 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jan if
- You weight community size — 45K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick whirl if
- You want the whirl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and whirl fits your workflow better
About Jan
Jan is an open source desktop application that serves as a ChatGPT replacement, enabling users to run large language models (LLMs) locally on their machines or connect to cloud based providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. It is built with Tauri, TypeScript, and integrates llama.cpp for efficient local inference, targeting privacy conscious users who want full control over their AI workflows without sending data to third parties.
About whirl
Whirl is an MIT licensed, full stack AI chat application built on Next.js and Convex, for anyone who wants to run their own multi model chat interface — whether for personal use, self hosting, or contributing to an open source project.
read the full whirl overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jan or whirl more popular?
Jan has 44,880 GitHub stars and whirl has 505. Jan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jan and whirl free?
Both are open source. Jan has no licence declared in this registry, and whirl is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Jan and whirl?
Jan is written in Rust and whirl 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, Jan or whirl?
Choose Jan if you want the larger community (44,880 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose whirl if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.