head to head · open source
Listmonk vs dbt
Listmonk has 24,124 GitHub stars, 2,742 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dbt has 14,112 stars, 2,658 forks, 1,534 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Listmonk leads on adoption by 71% (24,124 vs 14,112 stars). Listmonk is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; dbt is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Listmonk has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, dbt 19%. dbt 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
| Listmonk | dbt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 14K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Listmonk if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dbt if
- You want the dbt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and dbt fits your workflow better
About Listmonk
listmonk is a standalone, self hosted, newsletter and mailing list manager. It is fast, feature rich, and packed into a single binary. It uses a PostgreSQL database as its data store. Visit listmonk.app for more info. Check out the live demo . Installation Docker The latest image is available on DockerHub at listmonk/listmonk:latest . Download and use the sample docker compose.yml. Visit See installation docs Binary Download the latest release and extract the listmonk binary. ./listmonk new config to generate config.toml. Edit it. ./listmonk install to setup the Postgres DB (or upgrade to upgrade an existing DB…
read the full Listmonk overview →
About dbt
[!WARNING] dbt v1 development has moved to the 1.latest branch. The main branch now contains all the Apache 2.0 source code of dbt v2.0 — a ground up rewrite of dbt in Rust. If you're looking for the v1 Python implementation of the dbt framework, switch to 1.latest . dbt enables data analysts and engineers to transform their data using the same practices that software engineers use to build applications. About dbt v2.0 🚧 dbt v2.0 is in beta. Behavior, APIs, and on disk formats may change before the stable release. dbt v2.0 is engineered for performance at scale. It parses, compiles, and runs projects in a…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Listmonk or dbt more popular?
Listmonk has 24,124 GitHub stars and dbt has 14,112. Listmonk has the larger community by that measure.
Are Listmonk and dbt free?
Both are open source. Listmonk is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and dbt under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Listmonk and dbt?
Listmonk is written in Go and dbt in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Listmonk or dbt?
Choose Listmonk if you want the larger community (24,124 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose dbt if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.