head to head · open source
KeystoneJS vs Rowy
KeystoneJS has 9,986 GitHub stars, 1,262 forks, 138 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Rowy has 6,846 stars, 559 forks, 80 open issues and last shipped 2.0 years ago. KeystoneJS leads on adoption by 46% (9,986 vs 6,846 stars). KeystoneJS is written in TypeScript under MIT; Rowy is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. KeystoneJS has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Rowy 8%. KeystoneJS was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cms), 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
| KeystoneJS | Rowy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 10.0K | ★ 6.8K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2024-11-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 559 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick KeystoneJS if
- You weight community size — 10.0K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Rowy if
- You want the Rowy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Rowy fits your workflow better
About KeystoneJS
Keystone helps you build faster and scale further than any other CMS or App Framework. Describe your schema, and get a powerful GraphQL API & beautiful Management UI for your content and data. No boilerplate or bootstrapping – just elegant APIs to help you ship the code that matters without sacrificing the flexibility or power of a bespoke back end. Contents Usage & Documentation Versioning Code of Conduct Security License Usage & Documentation Keystone 6 is published to npm under the @keystone 6/ namespace. You can find our extended documentation on our website, but some quick links that might be helpful: Read…
read the full KeystoneJS overview →
About Rowy
✨ Airtable like UI for managing database ✨ Build any automation, with or without code ✨ Connect to your database and create Cloud Functions in low code without leaving your browser. Focus on building your apps. Low code for Firebase and Google Cloud. Website • Documentation • Chat with us • Twitter Live Demo 🛝 💥 Explore Rowy on live demo playground 💥 Features ✨ Powerful spreadsheet interface for Firestore CMS for Firestore CRUD operations Bulk import or export data csv, json, tsv Sort and filter by row values Lock, Freeze, Resize, Hide and Rename columns Multiple views for the same collection Automate with…
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Frequently asked questions
Is KeystoneJS or Rowy more popular?
KeystoneJS has 9,986 GitHub stars and Rowy has 6,846. KeystoneJS has the larger community by that measure.
Are KeystoneJS and Rowy free?
Both are open source. KeystoneJS is licensed under MIT, and Rowy has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between KeystoneJS and Rowy?
KeystoneJS is written in TypeScript and Rowy 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, KeystoneJS or Rowy?
Choose KeystoneJS if you want the larger community (9,986 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Rowy if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.