head to head · open source
nebula vs utopia
nebula has 12,398 GitHub stars, 1,329 forks, 678 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. utopia has 9,245 stars, 1,035 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped today. nebula leads on adoption by 34% (12,398 vs 9,245 stars). nebula is written in C++ under Apache-2.0; utopia is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. nebula has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, utopia 11%. utopia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (graphrag, knowledge-base, knowledge-graph), 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
| nebula | utopia | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-08 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nebula if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick utopia if
- You want the utopia 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 utopia fits your workflow better
About nebula
NebulaGraph is an open source, distributed graph database written in C++ and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the graph database ecosystem and appears in the CNCF Database Landscape. The project describes itself as symmetrically distributed, with storage and computing separated into distinct layers, horizontal scalability across nodes, strong data consistency enforced through the RAFT protocol, an OpenCypher compatible query language, role based access control, and a set of graph analytics algorithms. It has been developed for roughly eight years and carries 12,387 stars, 1,330 forks, and 678 op…
read the full nebula overview →
About utopia
Utopia is the world's first open source enterprise world model: a self hosted knowledge substrate with a bitemporal graph and an ontology at its base layer, built by DeepLethe for teams that need agent memory, governed knowledge, and a trustworthy decision core running on hardware they control.
read the full utopia overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nebula or utopia more popular?
nebula has 12,398 GitHub stars and utopia has 9,245. nebula has the larger community by that measure.
Are nebula and utopia free?
Both are open source. nebula is licensed under Apache-2.0 and utopia under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nebula and utopia?
nebula is written in C++ and utopia 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, nebula or utopia?
Choose nebula if you want the larger community (12,398 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose utopia if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.