head to head · open source
Onyx vs Swirl Search
Onyx has 32,175 GitHub stars, 4,490 forks, 451 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Swirl Search has 3,045 stars, 286 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Onyx leads on adoption by 957% (32,175 vs 3,045 stars). Onyx is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; Swirl Search is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Onyx has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Swirl Search 9%. Onyx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (python, rag), 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
| Onyx | Swirl Search | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.5K | ⑂ 286 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Onyx if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Swirl Search if
- You want the Swirl Search feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Swirl Search fits your workflow better
About Onyx
Onyx is an open source AI application layer that gives teams a self hostable chat interface with retrieval augmented generation over their own company data and more than 50 indexing connectors.
About Swirl Search
Swirl Search is an open source federated AI search and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) platform written in Python and built on Django. It lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem, specifically the AI interaction and interface space, and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license as SWIRL Community. The project queries more than 100 connected sources live, ranks the combined results, and optionally generates an answer with citations using a large language model of the operator's choice. It ships with the Galaxy UI, the same interface used by the commercial SWIRL Enterprise edition.
read the full Swirl Search overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Onyx or Swirl Search more popular?
Onyx has 32,175 GitHub stars and Swirl Search has 3,045. Onyx has the larger community by that measure.
Are Onyx and Swirl Search free?
Both are open source. Onyx has no licence declared in this registry, and Swirl Search is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Onyx and Swirl Search?
Onyx is written in Python and Swirl Search 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, Onyx or Swirl Search?
Choose Onyx if you want the larger community (32,175 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Swirl Search if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.