head to head · open source
langchain vs distilly
langchain has 148,892 GitHub stars, 25,031 forks, 492 open issues and last shipped yesterday. distilly has 26,310 stars, 2,243 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped 21 days ago. langchain leads on adoption by 466% (148,892 vs 26,310 stars). langchain is written in Python under MIT; distilly is written in Python under MIT. langchain has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, distilly 9%. langchain was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), 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
| langchain | distilly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 149K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 distilly if
- You want the distilly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and distilly 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 distilly
🧬 Distilly Formerly: Colleague Skill / colleague skill. Distill a person's experience, judgment, voice, and ways of working into a reusable Person Profile for AI agents and compatible bots. Messages · documents · interviews · public sources → Distilly → Person Profile → Agent / Bot 🧑💼 Your colleague quit, your mentor graduated, your teammate transferred — taking their whole playbook and context with them? 💞 Your family, old friends, partner drifting apart — and you want to hold on to the way it felt to be with them? 🌟 Your favorite author, idol, thinker you'll never meet — but you want to know what they'd…
read the full distilly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is langchain or distilly more popular?
langchain has 148,892 GitHub stars and distilly has 26,310. langchain has the larger community by that measure.
Are langchain and distilly free?
Both are open source. langchain is licensed under MIT and distilly under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between langchain and distilly?
langchain is written in Python and distilly 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, langchain or distilly?
Choose langchain if you want the larger community (148,892 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose distilly if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.