head to head · open source
pr-agent vs gentle-shell
pr-agent has 13,074 GitHub stars, 1,864 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gentle-shell has 934 stars, 138 forks, 369 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pr-agent leads on adoption by 1,300% (13,074 vs 934 stars). pr-agent is written in Python under MIT; gentle-shell is written in TypeScript under MIT. pr-agent has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, gentle-shell 15%. pr-agent was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (code-review), 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
| pr-agent | gentle-shell | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 934 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 138 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pr-agent if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gentle-shell if
- You want the gentle-shell feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and gentle-shell fits your workflow better
About pr-agent
PR Agent is an open source, AI powered code review agent, maintained by the community as a legacy project of Qodo, for development teams that want automated pull request review running on their own infrastructure with their own model keys.
read the full pr-agent overview →
About gentle-shell
gentle shell is a senior architect development harness for the Pi platform that turns a terminal coding agent into a controlled workspace with spec driven development, focused subagents, strict TDD evidence, review guardrails, and skill discovery.
read the full gentle-shell overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pr-agent or gentle-shell more popular?
pr-agent has 13,074 GitHub stars and gentle-shell has 934. pr-agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are pr-agent and gentle-shell free?
Both are open source. pr-agent is licensed under MIT and gentle-shell under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pr-agent and gentle-shell?
pr-agent is written in Python and gentle-shell in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, pr-agent or gentle-shell?
Choose pr-agent if you want the larger community (13,074 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gentle-shell if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.