head to head · open source
headroom vs qwen-code
headroom has 73,130 GitHub stars, 5,624 forks, 643 open issues and last shipped yesterday. qwen-code has 27,997 stars, 3,076 forks, 1,422 open issues and last shipped today. headroom leads on adoption by 161% (73,130 vs 27,997 stars). headroom is written in Python under Apache-2.0; qwen-code is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. headroom has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, qwen-code 11%. qwen-code was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai, llm, mcp), 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
| headroom | qwen-code | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 28K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.6K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick headroom if
- You weight community size — 73K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick qwen-code if
- You want the qwen-code 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 qwen-code fits your workflow better
About headroom
Headroom is an Apache 2.0 Python library, local proxy, agent wrapper and MCP server that compresses tool outputs, logs, files, RAG chunks and conversation history before they reach an LLM, and it is built for developers running AI coding agents or LLM applications who want to cut token usage without changing the answers they get.
read the full headroom overview →
About qwen-code
Qwen Code is an open source AI coding agent that runs in the terminal, with additional interfaces for editors, desktop, browser, and chat. It is written in TypeScript and released under the Apache 2.0 license, and it lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem as a development platform for agentic coding. The project is maintained by QwenLM and published on npm as @qwen code/qwen code , with a documentation site hosted at qwenlm.github.io. It ships as a command line tool named qwen that opens an interactive session inside a project directory.
read the full qwen-code overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is headroom or qwen-code more popular?
headroom has 73,130 GitHub stars and qwen-code has 27,997. headroom has the larger community by that measure.
Are headroom and qwen-code free?
Both are open source. headroom is licensed under Apache-2.0 and qwen-code under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between headroom and qwen-code?
headroom is written in Python and qwen-code 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, headroom or qwen-code?
Choose headroom if you want the larger community (73,130 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose qwen-code if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.