head to head · open source
Kilo vs sidex
Kilo has 27,380 GitHub stars, 3,180 forks, 586 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. sidex has 2,985 stars, 242 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 27 days ago. Kilo leads on adoption by 817% (27,380 vs 2,985 stars). Kilo is written in TypeScript under MIT; sidex is written in TypeScript under MIT. Kilo has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, sidex 8%. Kilo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (vscode), 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
| Kilo | sidex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-08-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 242 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kilo if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sidex if
- You want the sidex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sidex fits your workflow better
About Kilo
Kilo is an open source AI coding agent platform that integrates into VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, the CLI, and cloud environments. It enables developers to build, ship, and iterate faster by acting as an autonomous or semi autonomous coding assistant across their entire workflow. Built in TypeScript and licensed under MIT, it supports 500+ models—including GPT 5.5, Claude Opus 4.7, Claude Sonnet 4.6, and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview—without vendor lock in or markup.
About sidex
SideX is a port of Visual Studio Code that replaces Electron with Tauri — a Rust backend running against the operating system's native webview — for developers who want the VS Code workbench, editor, terminal and Git tooling without the bundled browser that normally comes with them.
read the full sidex overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kilo or sidex more popular?
Kilo has 27,380 GitHub stars and sidex has 2,985. Kilo has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kilo and sidex free?
Both are open source. Kilo is licensed under MIT and sidex under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kilo and sidex?
Kilo is written in TypeScript and sidex 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, Kilo or sidex?
Choose Kilo if you want the larger community (27,380 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose sidex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.