head to head · open source
OpenHands vs Jean
OpenHands has 88,312 GitHub stars, 11,598 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jean has 1,282 stars, 159 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenHands leads on adoption by 6,789% (88,312 vs 1,282 stars). OpenHands is written in TypeScript under MIT; Jean is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. OpenHands has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Jean 12%. OpenHands was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (agent), 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
| OpenHands | Jean | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 88K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 159 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenHands if
- You weight community size — 88K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Jean if
- You want the Jean feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Jean fits your workflow better
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 →
About Jean
Jean is a native desktop application for managing AI assisted software development across multiple projects. It works with Claude CLI, Codex CLI, Cursor CLI, OpenCode, PI, Command Code, Grok, and Kimi Code, and it lives in the developer tools and AI assisted coding ecosystem, where agents are driven through local command line interfaces rather than through a hosted service.
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenHands or Jean more popular?
OpenHands has 88,312 GitHub stars and Jean has 1,282. OpenHands has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenHands and Jean free?
Both are open source. OpenHands is licensed under MIT and Jean under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenHands and Jean?
OpenHands is written in TypeScript and Jean 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, OpenHands or Jean?
Choose OpenHands if you want the larger community (88,312 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Jean if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.