head to head · open source
rea vs openidea
rea has 422,352 GitHub stars, 105,329 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped yesterday. openidea has 4,836 stars, 389 forks, 87 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rea leads on adoption by 8,633% (422,352 vs 4,836 stars). rea is written in TypeScript under MIT; openidea is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. rea has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, openidea 8%. rea 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
| rea | openidea | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 422K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 105K | ⑂ 389 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rea if
- You weight community size — 422K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick openidea if
- You want the openidea 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 openidea fits your workflow better
About rea
English · 简体中文 · 繁體中文 · 日本語 · 한국어 · Türkçe · Русский · Tiếng Việt · ไทย · Deutsch · Español · Français · Українська · Polski · Português (Brasil) · العربية · فارسی REA: Reverse Engineer Anything One MCP for reverse engineering across binaries, applications, and runtime behavior. See a feature you like. Understand how it works, down to the binary level. Website · Guides · Showcases Quick start · How REA works · What you can analyze · Showcases · FAQ · Documentation npx rea agents setup Join the Reverse Engineering Community Discord · Q&A · Show and Tell See a feature in an app that you want in your own product?…
About openidea
The IDE you know, rebuilt in Rust. Download · Benchmark · Build · Discord OpenIDEA brings the IntelliJ IDEA way of working — its keymap, its tool windows, its search everything habits — to a native app with a Rust core. Editor, code insight, debugger, Git, terminal, database and HTTP clients, for 60+ languages. Builds for macOS, Windows and Linux. Benchmark Opening freqtrade (Python, 770 files) with warm caches, median of 5 runs: A release build of OpenIDEA from main and IDEA with default settings and plugins, on Windows 11, 32 core AMD, 62 GB RAM. IDEA analyses Python more deeply, so "ready" doesn't mean the…
read the full openidea overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rea or openidea more popular?
rea has 422,352 GitHub stars and openidea has 4,836. rea has the larger community by that measure.
Are rea and openidea free?
Both are open source. rea is licensed under MIT and openidea under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rea and openidea?
rea is written in TypeScript and openidea 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, rea or openidea?
Choose rea if you want the larger community (422,352 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose openidea if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.