head to head · open source
portainer vs open-ontologies
portainer has 38,527 GitHub stars, 2,906 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. open-ontologies has 530 stars, 72 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 7,169% (38,527 vs 530 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; open-ontologies is written in Rust under MIT. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, open-ontologies 14%. open-ontologies 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 | open-ontologies | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 530 |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 72 |
| 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 open-ontologies if
- You want the open-ontologies feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and open-ontologies 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 open-ontologies
Open Ontologies is an MIT licensed Rust engine for planning, applying and rolling back changes to a production ontology: it reports the blast radius of a change before it lands and emits a proof an auditor can re check without trusting the person who made the change.
read the full open-ontologies overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or open-ontologies more popular?
portainer has 38,527 GitHub stars and open-ontologies has 530. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and open-ontologies free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and open-ontologies under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and open-ontologies?
portainer is written in TypeScript and open-ontologies 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, portainer or open-ontologies?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,527 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose open-ontologies if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.