head to head · open source

odysseus vs waku-agent

odysseus has 94,935 GitHub stars, 1,862 forks, 1,233 open issues and last shipped yesterday. waku-agent has 2,126 stars, 418 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. odysseus leads on adoption by 4,365% (94,935 vs 2,126 stars). odysseus is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; waku-agent is written in Python under MIT. odysseus has attracted 2% as many forks as stars, waku-agent 20%. 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.

odysseus ★ 95K waku-agent ★ 2.1K category AI & Machine Learning

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Side by side

odysseus waku-agent
GitHub stars ★ 95K ★ 2.1K
License AGPL-3.0 MIT
Written in Python Python
Last push 2026-11-02 2026-10-23
Forks ⑂ 1.9K ⑂ 418
Self-hosting Yes Yes
Data ownership Your server Your server

pick odysseus if

  • You weight community size — 95K 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

full odysseus profile →

pick waku-agent if

  • You want the waku-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
  • You prefer the MIT license terms
  • Your stack matches Python
  • You evaluated both and waku-agent fits your workflow better

full waku-agent profile →

About odysseus

A self hosted AI workspace for chat, agents, research, documents, email, notes, calendar, and local model workflows. Quick Start · Setup Guide · Contributing · Roadmap Quick Start dev is the default branch and gets the newest changes first. Use main if you want the more curated branch. Open when the containers are healthy. The first admin password is printed in docker compose logs odysseus . Native installs, GPU notes, Windows/macOS instructions, HTTPS, and configuration live in the setup guide. Features Chat + Agents — local/API models, tools, MCP, files, shell, skills, and memory. Cookbook — hardware aware…

read the full odysseus overview →

About waku-agent

waku agent Your own AI assistant. On your laptop. In code you can read in an afternoon. Meet Waku — a local first personal assistant that shows the four pillars behind every serious agent: Harness · Loop · Memory · Eval/LLM Ops . No frameworks hiding the good parts. Built by seanchen.io. Local first. Your memory is one SQLite file. Open it. Read it. It's yours. Memory is the hero. Semantic + episodic + procedural — with a gate that decides whether to remember, and a pass that decides what to keep. The loop is 95 lines of plain Python. Step through it. Watch it think. A local dashboard lights up every message as…

read the full waku-agent overview →

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Frequently asked questions

Is odysseus or waku-agent more popular?

odysseus has 94,935 GitHub stars and waku-agent has 2,126. odysseus has the larger community by that measure.

Are odysseus and waku-agent free?

Both are open source. odysseus is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and waku-agent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.

What is the difference between odysseus and waku-agent?

odysseus is written in Python and waku-agent in Python. 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 waku-agent?

Choose odysseus if you want the larger community (94,935 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose waku-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.