head to head · open source
odysseus vs Sidekick
odysseus has 87,371 GitHub stars, 907 forks, 1,233 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Sidekick has 3,312 stars, 148 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. odysseus leads on adoption by 2,538% (87,371 vs 3,312 stars). odysseus is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; Sidekick is written in Swift under MIT. odysseus has attracted 1% as many forks as stars, Sidekick 4%. odysseus 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 | Sidekick | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 87K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-05-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 907 | ⑂ 148 |
| 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 Sidekick if
- You want the Sidekick feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and Sidekick 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 Sidekick
Sidekick is a native macOS application that lets a user chat with a local large language model which can answer using the contents of files, folders, and websites on that Mac, without installing any other software.
read the full Sidekick overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is odysseus or Sidekick more popular?
odysseus has 87,371 GitHub stars and Sidekick has 3,312. odysseus has the larger community by that measure.
Are odysseus and Sidekick free?
Both are open source. odysseus is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Sidekick under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between odysseus and Sidekick?
odysseus is written in Python and Sidekick in Swift. 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 Sidekick?
Choose odysseus if you want the larger community (87,371 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Sidekick if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.