head to head · open source
lapce vs athas
lapce has 38,920 GitHub stars, 1,356 forks, 901 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. athas has 3,111 stars, 258 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. lapce leads on adoption by 1,151% (38,920 vs 3,111 stars). lapce is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; athas is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. lapce has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, athas 8%. athas was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (code-editor, rust, text-editor, vim), 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
| lapce | athas | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 258 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lapce if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick athas if
- You want the athas feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and athas fits your workflow better
About lapce
Lapce is an Apache 2.0 licensed, native graphical code editor written in pure Rust for developers who want fast text editing, built in language intelligence, Vim style modal editing, and remote development support inside one application rather than assembled from a base editor plus a stack of extensions.
read the full lapce overview →
About athas
Athas is a lightweight, cross platform code editor built with Tauri, Rust and React that bundles Git integration, AI agents and Vim keybindings for developers working on macOS, Windows and Linux.
read the full athas overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lapce or athas more popular?
lapce has 38,920 GitHub stars and athas has 3,111. lapce has the larger community by that measure.
Are lapce and athas free?
Both are open source. lapce is licensed under Apache-2.0 and athas under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lapce and athas?
lapce is written in Rust and athas 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, lapce or athas?
Choose lapce if you want the larger community (38,920 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose athas if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.