head to head · open source
cadence vs loopx
cadence has 9,446 GitHub stars, 915 forks, 205 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. loopx has 5,903 stars, 559 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped today. cadence leads on adoption by 60% (9,446 vs 5,903 stars). cadence is written in Go under Apache-2.0; loopx is written in Python under Apache-2.0. cadence has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, loopx 9%. loopx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (workflow-automation), 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
| cadence | loopx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.4K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 915 | ⑂ 559 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cadence if
- You weight community size — 9.4K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick loopx if
- You want the loopx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and loopx fits your workflow better
About cadence
Cadence is an open source orchestration engine for running asynchronous, long running business logic in a fault tolerant way. Written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license, it lives in the distributed systems and workflow automation space, and the project has been open source since 2017. This repository holds the core engine plus supporting tools: the CLI, schema management, a benchmark suite, and a canary. Client libraries for Go and Java are official, while Python and Ruby SDKs come from the community, and iWF can be layered on top as a DSL framework.
read the full cadence overview →
About loopx
LoopX is an open, provider neutral, local first control plane for long horizon AI agents that preserves objectives, gates, todos, evidence, quota, and handoffs across turns for developers and teams running durable, governed work on harnesses such as Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor.
read the full loopx overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cadence or loopx more popular?
cadence has 9,446 GitHub stars and loopx has 5,903. cadence has the larger community by that measure.
Are cadence and loopx free?
Both are open source. cadence is licensed under Apache-2.0 and loopx under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cadence and loopx?
cadence is written in Go and loopx 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, cadence or loopx?
Choose cadence if you want the larger community (9,446 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose loopx if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.