head to head · open source
seatunnel vs OpenContracts
seatunnel has 9,657 GitHub stars, 2,416 forks, 705 open issues and last shipped today. OpenContracts has 1,484 stars, 189 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped yesterday. seatunnel leads on adoption by 551% (9,657 vs 1,484 stars). seatunnel is written in Java under Apache-2.0; OpenContracts is written in Python under MIT. seatunnel has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, OpenContracts 13%. seatunnel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (llm), 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
| seatunnel | OpenContracts | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.7K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 189 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick seatunnel if
- You weight community size — 9.7K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick OpenContracts if
- You want the OpenContracts feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and OpenContracts fits your workflow better
About seatunnel
Apache SeaTunnel is a multimodal, high performance, distributed data integration tool that is capable of synchronizing vast amounts of data daily. It is an Apache Software Foundation project written in Java and released under the Apache 2.0 license, with a home on the web at seatunnel.apache.org. The project has been in development for roughly nine years and has accumulated 9,652 stars and 2,407 forks on GitHub. It sits in the Data & Analytics ecosystem, specifically in data engineering and integration, and it is built around a connector driven model: sources, sinks, and transforms are configured as jobs, and tho…
read the full seatunnel overview →
About OpenContracts
OpenContracts is an MIT licensed, self hosted document intelligence platform that turns a repository of documents into a programmable citation graph, built for builders and hackers who need a document management system for the agentic world as much as a place to store files.
read the full OpenContracts overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is seatunnel or OpenContracts more popular?
seatunnel has 9,657 GitHub stars and OpenContracts has 1,484. seatunnel has the larger community by that measure.
Are seatunnel and OpenContracts free?
Both are open source. seatunnel is licensed under Apache-2.0 and OpenContracts under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between seatunnel and OpenContracts?
seatunnel is written in Java and OpenContracts 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, seatunnel or OpenContracts?
Choose seatunnel if you want the larger community (9,657 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose OpenContracts if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.