head to head · open source
pi vs Hercules
pi has 119,586 GitHub stars, 15,353 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hercules has 1,210 stars, 202 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. pi leads on adoption by 9,783% (119,586 vs 1,210 stars). pi is written in TypeScript under MIT; Hercules is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. pi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Hercules 17%. pi 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
| pi | Hercules | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 120K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 202 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pi if
- You weight community size — 120K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Hercules if
- You want the Hercules feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Hercules fits your workflow better
About pi
New issues and PRs from new contributors are auto closed by default. Maintainers review auto closed issues daily. See CONTRIBUTING.md. Pi Agent Harness This is the home of the Pi agent harness project including our self extensible coding agent. @earendil works/pi coding agent : Interactive coding agent CLI @earendil works/pi agent core : Agent runtime with tool calling and state management @earendil works/pi ai : Unified multi provider LLM API (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, …) To learn more about Pi: Visit pi.dev, the project website with demos Read the documentation, but you can also ask the agent to explain…
About Hercules
💪 Hercules Testing modern web applications can be difficult, with frequent changes and complex features making it hard to keep up. That's where Hercules comes in. Hercules is the world's first open source testing agent, built to handle the toughest testing tasks so you don't have to. It turns simple, easy to write Gherkin steps into fully automated end to end tests—no coding skills needed. Whether you're working with tricky enterprise platforms or running tests in your CI/CD pipeline, Hercules adapts to your needs and takes care of the details. With Hercules, testing becomes simple, reliable, and efficient…
read the full Hercules overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pi or Hercules more popular?
pi has 119,586 GitHub stars and Hercules has 1,210. pi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pi and Hercules free?
Both are open source. pi is licensed under MIT and Hercules under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pi and Hercules?
pi is written in TypeScript and Hercules 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, pi or Hercules?
Choose pi if you want the larger community (119,586 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Hercules if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.