head to head · open source
ECC vs plandex
ECC has 271,121 GitHub stars, 40,511 forks, 336 open issues and last shipped yesterday. plandex has 15,687 stars, 1,178 forks, 66 open issues and last shipped 1.0 years ago. ECC leads on adoption by 1,628% (271,121 vs 15,687 stars). ECC is written in JavaScript under MIT; plandex is written in Go under MIT. ECC has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, plandex 8%. ECC was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-agents, developer-tools, llm), 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.
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Side by side
| ECC | plandex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 271K | ★ 16K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-02 | 2025-10-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 41K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ECC if
- You weight community size — 271K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick plandex if
- You want the plandex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and plandex fits your workflow better
About ECC
ECC is an MIT licensed open source agent harness performance optimization system that gives AI coding agents a coordinated engineering workflow — plan, test, implement, review, verify, remember, improve — for developers working in Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, and other harnesses.
About plandex
Plandex is an open source, terminal based AI coding agent for developers who need to plan and execute large coding tasks spanning dozens of files in real world projects.
read the full plandex overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ECC or plandex more popular?
ECC has 271,121 GitHub stars and plandex has 15,687. ECC has the larger community by that measure.
Are ECC and plandex free?
Both are open source. ECC is licensed under MIT and plandex under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ECC and plandex?
ECC is written in JavaScript and plandex in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ECC or plandex?
Choose ECC if you want the larger community (271,121 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose plandex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.