head to head · open source
LightRAG vs graphrag
LightRAG has 40,487 GitHub stars, 5,752 forks, 222 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. graphrag has 36,531 stars, 3,867 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LightRAG leads on adoption by 11% (40,487 vs 36,531 stars). LightRAG is written in Python under MIT; graphrag is written in Python under MIT. LightRAG has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, graphrag 11%. graphrag was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (gpt, graphrag, llm, rag), 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
| LightRAG | graphrag | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 37K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 3.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LightRAG if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick graphrag if
- You want the graphrag feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and graphrag fits your workflow better
About LightRAG
🚀 LightRAG: Simple and Fast Retrieval Augmented Generation 🎉 News [2026.07]🎯[New Feature]: Add Smart Heading recognition feature for word documents. [2026.05]🎯[New Feature]: Merge RagAnything into LightRAG 🎉. Multimodal content parsing and extraction via MinerU / Docling services. [2026.05]🎯[New Feature]: Introducing four selectable text chunking strategies: Fix , Recursive , Vector , and Paragraph . [2026.05]🎯[New Feature]: Role specific LLM configuration support, 4 distinct roles: EXTRACT, QUERY, KEYWORDS, and VLM, with independent LLM settings. [2026.03]🎯[New Feature]: Integrated OpenSearch as a…
read the full LightRAG overview →
About graphrag
GraphRAG [!WARNING] GraphRAG is a research project that explores the functional use of graphs to form a targeted context for question answering. Since our first release in July 2024 the capabilities of frontier models have changed dramatically, and our portfolio of research projects has diversified to match. This project is largely in maintenance mode, and won't be accepting new PRs or implementing new features. We'll perform bug fixes and dependency updates as appropriate, particularly to address CVEs as they arise. 👉 Microsoft Research Blog Post 👉 Read the docs 👉 GraphRAG Arxiv Overview The GraphRAG project…
read the full graphrag overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is LightRAG or graphrag more popular?
LightRAG has 40,487 GitHub stars and graphrag has 36,531. LightRAG has the larger community by that measure.
Are LightRAG and graphrag free?
Both are open source. LightRAG is licensed under MIT and graphrag under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between LightRAG and graphrag?
LightRAG is written in Python and graphrag 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, LightRAG or graphrag?
Choose LightRAG if you want the larger community (40,487 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose graphrag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.