head to head · open source
open-design vs themes
open-design has 106,691 GitHub stars, 12,149 forks, 1,090 open issues and last shipped yesterday. themes has 8,826 stars, 345 forks, 167 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. open-design leads on adoption by 1,109% (106,691 vs 8,826 stars). open-design is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; themes is written in TypeScript under MIT. open-design has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, themes 4%. open-design was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (design-systems), 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-design | themes | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 107K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-09 | 2026-04-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 345 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick open-design if
- You weight community size — 107K 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 themes if
- You want the themes feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and themes 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 themes
Radix Themes An open source component library optimized for fast development, easy maintenance, and accessibility. Documentation For full documentation, visit radix ui.com/themes/docs. Releases For changelog, visit radix ui.com/themes/docs/overview/releases. Authors Benoît Grélard (@benoitgrelard) Vlad Moroz (@vladyslavmoroz) Andy Hook (@Andy Hook) Lucas Motta (@elmotta) Community See our contribution guidelines for information on local development and creating a pull request. Github Discussions Ask questions and get answers from other community members. Discord To get involved with the Radix community, ask…
read the full themes overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is open-design or themes more popular?
open-design has 106,691 GitHub stars and themes has 8,826. open-design has the larger community by that measure.
Are open-design and themes free?
Both are open source. open-design is licensed under Apache-2.0 and themes under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between open-design and themes?
open-design is written in TypeScript and themes in TypeScript. 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 themes?
Choose open-design if you want the larger community (106,691 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose themes if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.