head to head · open source
loopx vs shepherd
loopx has 6,548 GitHub stars, 619 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shepherd has 2,504 stars, 219 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. loopx leads on adoption by 162% (6,548 vs 2,504 stars). loopx is written in Python under Apache-2.0; shepherd is written in Python under MIT. loopx has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, shepherd 9%. loopx 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
| loopx | shepherd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.5K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 619 | ⑂ 219 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick loopx if
- You weight community size — 6.5K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick shepherd if
- You want the shepherd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and shepherd fits your workflow better
About loopx
LoopX The open, provider neutral, stateful control plane for long horizon agents. Runs on top of Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and other agent harnesses. LoopX preserves objectives, gates, todos, evidence, quota, and handoffs across turns; the harness executes bounded work. Public website · Blog · Docs · Developer Book · Try LoopX · See real loops · How it works · 简体中文 Open and provider neutral, LoopX is a lightweight state kernel and local first control plane for loop engineering. It runs on top of different agent harnesses rather than replacing them, providing the long horizon state, semantic decisions about…
read the full loopx overview →
About shepherd
Shepherd: Programmable Meta Agents via Reversible Execution Traces [!IMPORTANT] Shepherd is in early alpha and under active development. APIs may still change between releases. Feedback and issues are very welcome! Install Quickstart Permissions Examples Docs Citation Shepherd is a runtime substrate for agent work that needs inspection, reversibility, and supervision. It records agent runs as durable, inspectable execution traces, with retained workspace outputs that can be reviewed before they are selected, applied, released, or discarded. Platforms. Shepherd requires Python 3.11+ . OS level grant enforcement…
read the full shepherd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is loopx or shepherd more popular?
loopx has 6,548 GitHub stars and shepherd has 2,504. loopx has the larger community by that measure.
Are loopx and shepherd free?
Both are open source. loopx is licensed under Apache-2.0 and shepherd under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between loopx and shepherd?
loopx is written in Python and shepherd 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, loopx or shepherd?
Choose loopx if you want the larger community (6,548 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose shepherd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.