head to head · open source
Warp vs Kitty
Warp has 65,830 GitHub stars, 5,752 forks, 5,218 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kitty has 35,510 stars, 1,581 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Warp leads on adoption by 85% (65,830 vs 35,510 stars). Warp is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; Kitty is written in Python under GPL-3.0. Warp has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Kitty 4%. Warp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (terminal), 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
| Warp | Kitty | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 36K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Warp if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Kitty if
- You want the Kitty feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Kitty fits your workflow better
About Warp
Website · Code · Agents · Terminal · Drive · Docs · How Warp Works [!NOTE] OpenAI is the founding sponsor of the new, open source Warp repository, and the new agentic management workflows are powered by GPT models. About Warp is an agentic development environment, born out of the terminal. Use Warp's built in coding agent, or bring your own CLI agent (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, and others). Installation You can download Warp and read our docs for platform specific instructions. Warp Contributions Overview Dashboard Explore build.warp.dev to: Watch thousands of Warp Factory agents triage issues, write specs…
About Kitty
= kitty the fast, feature rich, cross platform, GPU based terminal If you live in the terminal, kitty is made for you ! See kitty website]. image: status", link=" Asked Questions] To ask other questions about kitty usage, use either the on GitHub] or the community] Packaging status in various repositories: image: status", link="
read the full Kitty overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More Terminals projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Terminals field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Warp or Kitty more popular?
Warp has 65,830 GitHub stars and Kitty has 35,510. Warp has the larger community by that measure.
Are Warp and Kitty free?
Both are open source. Warp is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Kitty under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Warp and Kitty?
Warp is written in Rust and Kitty in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Warp or Kitty?
Choose Warp if you want the larger community (65,830 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Kitty if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.