head to head · open source
mirrord vs radar
mirrord has 5,401 GitHub stars, 227 forks, 73 open issues and last shipped yesterday. radar has 4,029 stars, 266 forks, 89 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mirrord leads on adoption by 34% (5,401 vs 4,029 stars). mirrord is written in Rust under MIT; radar is written in Go under Apache-2.0. mirrord has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, radar 7%. radar 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, cloud-native), 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
| mirrord | radar | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.4K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 227 | ⑂ 266 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick mirrord if
- You weight community size — 5.4K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick radar if
- You want the radar feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and radar fits your workflow better
About mirrord
mirrord runs your local process inside a live Kubernetes cluster. It works the same way for developers and for AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Copilot, Windsurf): your code runs on your machine, but mirrord routes its traffic, files, and environment variables through a target pod in the cluster. That covers both halves of the software development loop. Read live cluster context while writing the code (real env vars, real service responses, real queue contents) so the change is grounded in what's actually deployed. Then run the code against those same services and data to confirm it works end to…
read the full mirrord overview →
About radar
Radar The missing open source Kubernetes UI. Single binary. No account required. Free forever. 🌐 radarhq.io · Docs · Releases Topology, resources, Helm, GitOps, traffic, audit, upgrade impact, and MCP context for AI agents — from your laptop or in cluster. Table of contents Why Radar? Installation Usage Views — Topology · Resources · Image Filesystem · Timeline · Helm · Compare · TLS · GitOps · Traffic · Cost · Audit · Upgrade impact · RBAC · MCP · Auth Supported Resources Keyboard Shortcuts Security Development · Contributing Install and run in 30 seconds: More installation options ↓ Why Radar? Zero install on…
read the full radar overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mirrord or radar more popular?
mirrord has 5,401 GitHub stars and radar has 4,029. mirrord has the larger community by that measure.
Are mirrord and radar free?
Both are open source. mirrord is licensed under MIT and radar under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mirrord and radar?
mirrord is written in Rust and radar in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, mirrord or radar?
Choose mirrord if you want the larger community (5,401 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose radar if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.