head to head · open source
OpenProject vs nimbalyst
OpenProject has 16,933 GitHub stars, 3,676 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nimbalyst has 2,015 stars, 326 forks, 642 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. OpenProject leads on adoption by 740% (16,933 vs 2,015 stars). OpenProject is written in Ruby under GPL-3.0; nimbalyst is written in TypeScript under MIT. OpenProject has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, nimbalyst 16%. OpenProject was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kanban), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| OpenProject | nimbalyst | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.7K | ⑂ 326 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenProject if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nimbalyst if
- You want the nimbalyst feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and nimbalyst fits your workflow better
About OpenProject
OpenProject We empower teams to achieve great things together for the good of society. OpenProject is a web based open source project management software for teams and organizations that require transparency, flexibility, and data sovereignty. Manage projects, portfolios, products, tasks, bugs, agile workflows, roadmaps, and team collaboration in a single platform. OpenProject can be self hosted and is designed for organizations looking for an open source enterprise ready alternative to tools such as Jira, MS Project, Monday, Asana, YouTrack while maintaining full control over their data and infrastructure…
read the full OpenProject overview →
About nimbalyst
Nimbalyst: Open source visual workspace for building with Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, and other coding agents. Work on everything in one place: sessions, worktrees, tasks, docs, diagrams, mockups, commits, and code. Visually editable. Deeply linked. Free and MIT licensed. Desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux, with an iOS companion app. Website · Download · Documentation · Discord What you get Visual editing of the agent's work. WYSIWYG editors for markdown, mockups, Mermaid, Excalidraw, CSV, data models, and code in Monaco. You and the coding agent edit the same files. Red/green diff review. Step through…
read the full nimbalyst overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Project & Work Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Project & Work Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenProject or nimbalyst more popular?
OpenProject has 16,933 GitHub stars and nimbalyst has 2,015. OpenProject has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenProject and nimbalyst free?
Both are open source. OpenProject is licensed under GPL-3.0 and nimbalyst under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenProject and nimbalyst?
OpenProject is written in Ruby and nimbalyst 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, OpenProject or nimbalyst?
Choose OpenProject if you want the larger community (16,933 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose nimbalyst if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.