head to head · open source
puppetry vs relay
puppetry has 888 GitHub stars, 127 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. relay has 843 stars, 65 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped today. puppetry leads on adoption by 5% (888 vs 843 stars). puppetry is written in JavaScript under MIT; relay is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. puppetry has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, relay 8%. relay 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
| puppetry | relay | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 888 | ★ 843 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-06-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 127 | ⑂ 65 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick puppetry if
- You weight community size — 888 stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick relay if
- You want the relay feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and relay fits your workflow better
About puppetry
Puppetry is a no code/low code end to end web testing tool built on top of Puppeteer and Jest, aimed at QA engineers, testers, and developers who want to record and manage browser tests through a UI instead of writing scripts — though the project is now officially deprecated and kept only as an example and a piece of its own history.
read the full puppetry overview →
About relay
Relay is a TypeScript, Apache 2.0 licensed real time messaging layer that gives AI agents shared channels, threads, direct messages, reactions, files, search and realtime events, and it is built for teams orchestrating multiple agents such as Claude Code, Codex or custom harnesses.
read the full relay overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is puppetry or relay more popular?
puppetry has 888 GitHub stars and relay has 843. puppetry has the larger community by that measure.
Are puppetry and relay free?
Both are open source. puppetry is licensed under MIT and relay under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between puppetry and relay?
puppetry is written in JavaScript and relay 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, puppetry or relay?
Choose puppetry if you want the larger community (888 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose relay if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.