head to head · open source
Windmill vs open-claude-cowork
Windmill has 18,370 GitHub stars, 1,135 forks, 852 open issues and last shipped yesterday. open-claude-cowork has 4,309 stars, 702 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Windmill leads on adoption by 326% (18,370 vs 4,309 stars). Windmill is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; open-claude-cowork is written in JavaScript under MIT. Windmill has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, open-claude-cowork 16%. Windmill 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
| Windmill | open-claude-cowork | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-05-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 702 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Windmill if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick open-claude-cowork if
- You want the open-claude-cowork feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and open-claude-cowork fits your workflow better
About Windmill
Open source developer platform for internal code: APIs, background jobs, workflows and UIs. Self hostable alternative to Retool, Pipedream, Superblocks and a simplified Temporal with autogenerated UIs and custom UIs to trigger workflows and scripts as internal apps. Scripts are turned into sharable UIs automatically, and can be composed together into flows or used into richer apps built with low code. Supported languages: Python, TypeScript, Go, Bash, SQL, GraphQL, PowerShell, Rust, and more. Try it Website Docs Discord Hub Contributing Windmill Developer platform for APIs, background jobs, workflows and UIs…
read the full Windmill overview →
About open-claude-cowork
Open Claude Cowork An open source desktop chat application powered by Claude Agent SDK and Composio Tool Router. Automate your work end to end across desktop and all your work apps in one place. Get your free API key to get started → Pst. hey, you, join our stargazers :) What's Inside This repo includes two powerful AI tools: Both include 500+ app integrations via Composio (Gmail, Slack, GitHub, Google Drive, and more). Quick Start Open Claude Cowork Then run in two terminals: 🦑 Secure Clawdbot Select "Terminal chat" to test, or "Start gateway" to connect WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal/iMessage. See Secure Clawdbot…
read the full open-claude-cowork overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Windmill or open-claude-cowork more popular?
Windmill has 18,370 GitHub stars and open-claude-cowork has 4,309. Windmill has the larger community by that measure.
Are Windmill and open-claude-cowork free?
Both are open source. Windmill has no licence declared in this registry, and open-claude-cowork is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Windmill and open-claude-cowork?
Windmill is written in Rust and open-claude-cowork in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Windmill or open-claude-cowork?
Choose Windmill if you want the larger community (18,370 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose open-claude-cowork if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.