head to head · open source
odysseus vs vellum-assistant
odysseus has 87,371 GitHub stars, 907 forks, 1,233 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. vellum-assistant has 1,286 stars, 186 forks, 179 open issues and last shipped yesterday. odysseus leads on adoption by 6,694% (87,371 vs 1,286 stars). odysseus is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; vellum-assistant is written in TypeScript under MIT. odysseus has attracted 1% as many forks as stars, vellum-assistant 14%. vellum-assistant 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 | vellum-assistant | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 87K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 907 | ⑂ 186 |
| 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 vellum-assistant if
- You want the vellum-assistant feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and vellum-assistant 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 vellum-assistant
Vellum Assistant is an MIT licensed, TypeScript personal AI assistant for individuals and small teams who want a persistent, self improving agent that runs across desktop, mobile, web, voice, email, Telegram, Slack and Twilio without building the memory and orchestration layer themselves.
read the full vellum-assistant overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is odysseus or vellum-assistant more popular?
odysseus has 87,371 GitHub stars and vellum-assistant has 1,286. odysseus has the larger community by that measure.
Are odysseus and vellum-assistant free?
Both are open source. odysseus is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and vellum-assistant under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between odysseus and vellum-assistant?
odysseus is written in Python and vellum-assistant 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 vellum-assistant?
Choose odysseus if you want the larger community (87,371 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose vellum-assistant if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.