head to head · open source
pi vs rtk
pi has 106,704 GitHub stars, 13,453 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rtk has 80,883 stars, 5,130 forks, 1,642 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pi leads on adoption by 32% (106,704 vs 80,883 stars). pi is written in TypeScript under MIT; rtk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. pi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, rtk 6%. 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 | rtk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 107K | ★ 81K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 5.1K |
| 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 rtk if
- You want the rtk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and rtk 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 rtk
rtk is an Apache 2.0 Rust CLI proxy that sits between an AI coding agent and the shell, filtering and compressing command output so 60 90% fewer tokens reach the model, and it is built for developers running agentic coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex against real repositories.
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Frequently asked questions
Is pi or rtk more popular?
pi has 106,704 GitHub stars and rtk has 80,883. pi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pi and rtk free?
Both are open source. pi is licensed under MIT and rtk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pi and rtk?
pi is written in TypeScript and rtk in Rust. 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 rtk?
Choose pi if you want the larger community (106,704 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rtk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.