head to head · open source
Kilo vs terax-ai
Kilo has 27,369 GitHub stars, 3,178 forks, 586 open issues and last shipped yesterday. terax-ai has 9,223 stars, 1,009 forks, 449 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kilo leads on adoption by 197% (27,369 vs 9,223 stars). Kilo is written in TypeScript under MIT; terax-ai is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Kilo has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, terax-ai 11%. terax-ai was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Kilo | terax-ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 terax-ai if
- You want the terax-ai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and terax-ai 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 terax-ai
Terax is a lightweight, open source, terminal first AI native development environment (ADE) for developers who want a fast native workspace with agentic AI assistance, built on Tauri 2, Rust, and React 19, and released under the Apache 2.0 licence.
read the full terax-ai overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More IDEs & Code Editors projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the IDEs & Code Editors field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kilo or terax-ai more popular?
Kilo has 27,369 GitHub stars and terax-ai has 9,223. Kilo has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kilo and terax-ai free?
Both are open source. Kilo is licensed under MIT and terax-ai under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kilo and terax-ai?
Kilo is written in TypeScript and terax-ai 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 terax-ai?
Choose Kilo if you want the larger community (27,369 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose terax-ai if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.