head to head · open source
mantis vs roam-code
mantis has 1,665 GitHub stars, 160 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. roam-code has 518 stars, 50 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mantis leads on adoption by 221% (1,665 vs 518 stars). mantis is written in Python under Apache-2.0; roam-code is written in Python under Apache-2.0. mantis has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, roam-code 10%. roam-code was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai-agents, code-review), 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
| mantis | roam-code | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.7K | ★ 518 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 160 | ⑂ 50 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick mantis if
- You weight community size — 1.7K 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 roam-code if
- You want the roam-code 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 roam-code fits your workflow better
About mantis
Mantis is a modular, stack agnostic toolkit of security review skills for AI coding agents, and it includes an ADK reference harness for building secure software. It lives in the developer tools, AI coding agent, and application security ecosystem, with topics such as code review, DevSecOps, multi agent systems, and hardware security. The project helps agents autonomously find, reproduce, and patch vulnerabilities while giving humans a structured way to review results.
read the full mantis overview →
About roam-code
roam code is a local first codebase intelligence CLI and MCP server that gives AI coding agents a reusable SQLite code graph, static pattern findings, and change safety checks across 28 languages — built for developers and teams who run coding agents against their own repositories and want no API key, no account, and no automatic source code upload.
read the full roam-code overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mantis or roam-code more popular?
mantis has 1,665 GitHub stars and roam-code has 518. mantis has the larger community by that measure.
Are mantis and roam-code free?
Both are open source. mantis is licensed under Apache-2.0 and roam-code under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mantis and roam-code?
mantis is written in Python and roam-code 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, mantis or roam-code?
Choose mantis if you want the larger community (1,665 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose roam-code if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.