head to head · open source
caveman vs OpenHands
caveman has 111,034 GitHub stars, 6,430 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenHands has 90,599 stars, 12,001 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caveman leads on adoption by 23% (111,034 vs 90,599 stars). caveman is written in Go under Apache-2.0; OpenHands is written in TypeScript under MIT. caveman has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, OpenHands 13%. OpenHands 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
| caveman | OpenHands | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 111K | ★ 91K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 12K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caveman if
- You weight community size — 111K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick OpenHands if
- You want the OpenHands feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and OpenHands fits your workflow better
About caveman
caveman is a free, open source skill and local proxy for AI coding agents that compresses what the agent writes and reads, cutting token usage by around 65% without touching code, commands, or error messages.
read the full caveman overview →
About OpenHands
OpenHands is an open source platform that provides a self hosted control center—Agent Canvas—for managing and orchestrating autonomous AI coding agents. It lives in the developer tools and AI assisted coding ecosystem, designed to turn local or remote agents into a persistent, automated engineering team. The platform supports multiple agent backends and integrates with third party services to enable scheduled or event driven automation workflows.
read the full OpenHands overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caveman or OpenHands more popular?
caveman has 111,034 GitHub stars and OpenHands has 90,599. caveman has the larger community by that measure.
Are caveman and OpenHands free?
Both are open source. caveman is licensed under Apache-2.0 and OpenHands under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caveman and OpenHands?
caveman is written in Go and OpenHands 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, caveman or OpenHands?
Choose caveman if you want the larger community (111,034 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose OpenHands if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.