head to head · open source
langchain vs agent-rules-books
langchain has 148,892 GitHub stars, 25,031 forks, 492 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agent-rules-books has 3,170 stars, 552 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. langchain leads on adoption by 4,597% (148,892 vs 3,170 stars). langchain is written in Python under MIT; agent-rules-books is written in various languages under MIT. langchain has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, agent-rules-books 17%. langchain was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| langchain | agent-rules-books | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 149K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | — |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 552 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick langchain if
- You weight community size — 149K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick agent-rules-books if
- You want the agent-rules-books feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- You evaluated both and agent-rules-books fits your workflow better
About langchain
The agent engineering platform. LangChain is a framework for building agents and LLM powered applications. It helps you chain together interoperable components and third party integrations to simplify AI application development — all while future proofing decisions as the underlying technology evolves. [!TIP] Just getting started? Check out Deep Agents — a higher level package built on LangChain for agents that have built in capabilities for common usage patterns such as planning, subagents, file system usage, and more. Quickstart If you're looking for more advanced customization or agent orchestration, check…
read the full langchain overview →
About agent-rules-books
AI agents Rules / Skills from Programming Books v0.6 AGENTS.md rules / skills for Codex , Cursor , Claude Code , distilled from classic software engineering books about refactoring, architecture, DDD and code quality. About · Installation · Rules / Skills · Books List · Usage · Books Compatibility About MIT licensed universal project rules for coding agents. This repository contains ready to use rule sets inspired by well known books on software design, architecture, refactoring, legacy code, reliability, and data intensive systems. For editor specific setup in Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor, see USAGE.md. It…
read the full agent-rules-books overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is langchain or agent-rules-books more popular?
langchain has 148,892 GitHub stars and agent-rules-books has 3,170. langchain has the larger community by that measure.
Are langchain and agent-rules-books free?
Both are open source. langchain is licensed under MIT and agent-rules-books under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between langchain and agent-rules-books?
langchain is written in Python and agent-rules-books in various languages. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, langchain or agent-rules-books?
Choose langchain if you want the larger community (148,892 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose agent-rules-books if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.