head to head · open source
portainer vs architect
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars, 2,906 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. architect has 2,624 stars, 107 forks, 61 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. portainer leads on adoption by 1,368% (38,524 vs 2,624 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; architect is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, architect 4%. portainer 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
| portainer | architect | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | Zlib | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 107 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick architect if
- You want the architect feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and architect fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments, distributed under the zlib licence and aimed at homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware.
read the full portainer overview →
About architect
Architect is an open source JavaScript project for building a functional web app on AWS serverless infrastructure. It lives in the AWS serverless ecosystem, with topics including arc, aws, aws apigateway, aws dynamodb, aws lambda, fwa, infrastructure as code, and serverless. The project uses Apache 2.0 and appears in Infrastructure and Operations, Cloud Infrastructure Management.
read the full architect overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or architect more popular?
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars and architect has 2,624. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and architect free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and architect under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and architect?
portainer is written in TypeScript and architect in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, portainer or architect?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,524 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose architect if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.