head to head · open source
odysseus vs Orkas
odysseus has 87,371 GitHub stars, 907 forks, 1,233 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Orkas has 2,055 stars, 83 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped yesterday. odysseus leads on adoption by 4,152% (87,371 vs 2,055 stars). odysseus is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; Orkas is written in TypeScript under MIT. odysseus has attracted 1% as many forks as stars, Orkas 4%. Orkas 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
| odysseus | Orkas | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 87K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 907 | ⑂ 83 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick odysseus if
- You weight community size — 87K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Orkas if
- You want the Orkas feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Orkas fits your workflow better
About odysseus
Odysseus is a self hosted AI workspace written in Python and released under the AGPL 3.0 or later licence, built for people who want chat, agents, research, documents, email, notes, tasks, and calendar in one deployment on infrastructure they control.
read the full odysseus overview →
About Orkas
Orkas is an open source, local first AI desktop application for macOS, Windows, and Linux in which a Commander LLM plans a goal and coordinates specialist sub agents from one chat, built for people who want to command a team of agents rather than talk to a single chatbot.
read the full Orkas overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is odysseus or Orkas more popular?
odysseus has 87,371 GitHub stars and Orkas has 2,055. odysseus has the larger community by that measure.
Are odysseus and Orkas free?
Both are open source. odysseus is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Orkas under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between odysseus and Orkas?
odysseus is written in Python and Orkas in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, odysseus or Orkas?
Choose odysseus if you want the larger community (87,371 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Orkas if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.