head to head · open source
pi vs Hercules
pi has 106,586 GitHub stars, 13,437 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hercules has 1,158 stars, 189 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. pi leads on adoption by 9,104% (106,586 vs 1,158 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 16%. 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 | ★ 107K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 189 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pi if
- You weight community size — 107K 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
Pi is a modular agent toolkit written in TypeScript for building and running terminal based AI coding agents. It lives in the developer tooling ecosystem and provides composable packages for LLM integration, agent orchestration, and terminal UI rendering. The project centers on @earendil works/pi coding agent , an interactive CLI agent, supported by core runtime, AI abstraction, and TUI libraries.
About Hercules
Hercules is an open source, AGPL 3.0 testing agent that turns plain Gherkin feature files into automated end to end UI, API, security, accessibility and visual tests for QA engineers, developers and platform teams who need browser level coverage without writing or maintaining test code.
read the full Hercules overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pi or Hercules more popular?
pi has 106,586 GitHub stars and Hercules has 1,158. 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 (106,586 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Hercules if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.