head to head · open source
open-claude-cowork vs shepherd
open-claude-cowork has 4,359 GitHub stars, 735 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. shepherd has 2,432 stars, 211 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. open-claude-cowork leads on adoption by 79% (4,359 vs 2,432 stars). open-claude-cowork is written in JavaScript under MIT; shepherd is written in Python under MIT. open-claude-cowork has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, shepherd 9%. shepherd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (workflow-automation), 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
| open-claude-cowork | shepherd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.4K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-05-23 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 735 | ⑂ 211 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick open-claude-cowork if
- You weight community size — 4.4K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick shepherd if
- You want the shepherd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and shepherd fits your workflow better
About open-claude-cowork
Open Claude Cowork is an open source JavaScript desktop chat application in the Electron, Node.js, and Anthropic Claude ecosystem. It uses the Claude Agent SDK, Composio Tool Router, and MCP, and includes Secure Clawdbot for messaging platforms.
read the full open-claude-cowork overview →
About shepherd
Shepherd is a Python runtime substrate that records an agent's execution as a reversible, Git like trace so that meta agents can observe, fork, replay, and revert any run — built for engineers and researchers who supervise, optimise, or train other agents.
read the full shepherd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is open-claude-cowork or shepherd more popular?
open-claude-cowork has 4,359 GitHub stars and shepherd has 2,432. open-claude-cowork has the larger community by that measure.
Are open-claude-cowork and shepherd free?
Both are open source. open-claude-cowork is licensed under MIT and shepherd under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between open-claude-cowork and shepherd?
open-claude-cowork is written in JavaScript and shepherd 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, open-claude-cowork or shepherd?
Choose open-claude-cowork if you want the larger community (4,359 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose shepherd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.