head to head · open source
open-design vs kurtosis
open-design has 105,980 GitHub stars, 12,065 forks, 1,090 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kurtosis has 558 stars, 100 forks, 313 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. open-design leads on adoption by 18,893% (105,980 vs 558 stars). open-design is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; kurtosis is written in Go under Apache-2.0. open-design has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, kurtosis 18%. open-design 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
| open-design | kurtosis | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 106K | ★ 558 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 100 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick open-design if
- You weight community size — 106K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kurtosis if
- You want the kurtosis feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kurtosis fits your workflow better
About open-design
OpenDesign: The open source Claude Design alternative ⚡ OpenDesign Cloud — the official model service. One recharge to use both agent and image models inside OpenDesign: GPT, Claude, and DeepSeek for agents; GPT Image 2.0, Seedream 5.0 Pro, and Nano Banana 2.0 for images. 🚀 DeepSeek V4 Flash and V4 Pro are now available. Put top tier intelligence to work across prototypes, decks, design systems, and everyday agent tasks. OpenDesign members can use both models without limits for two weeks, directly inside the app. 🧩 DeepSeek Harness is now supported. Connect DeepSeek's official dsh agent harness to OpenDesign…
read the full open-design overview →
About kurtosis
What is Kurtosis? ================= Have you ever tried to build on top of a colleague's work, or contribute to an open source project, just to get stuck on the first steps of spinning up a stack to play with? Kurtosis handles the complexity of spinning up ephemeral dev or test stacks so you can focus on developing, not configuring. Kurtosis is formed of: A packaging system for distributing backend stack definitions, which can run on docker or on kubernetes A runtime with a per stack file management system for reproducibly initializing the state of your stack A set of tools to enable devs to interact with their…
read the full kurtosis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is open-design or kurtosis more popular?
open-design has 105,980 GitHub stars and kurtosis has 558. open-design has the larger community by that measure.
Are open-design and kurtosis free?
Both are open source. open-design is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kurtosis under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between open-design and kurtosis?
open-design is written in TypeScript and kurtosis in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, open-design or kurtosis?
Choose open-design if you want the larger community (105,980 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kurtosis if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.