head to head · open source
ragflow vs zcf
ragflow has 91,015 GitHub stars, 10,780 forks, 1,525 open issues and last shipped today. zcf has 6,083 stars, 421 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. ragflow leads on adoption by 1,396% (91,015 vs 6,083 stars). ragflow is written in Go under Apache-2.0; zcf is written in TypeScript under MIT. ragflow has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, zcf 7%. ragflow was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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
| ragflow | zcf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-08-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 421 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ragflow if
- You weight community size — 91K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick zcf if
- You want the zcf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and zcf fits your workflow better
About ragflow
RAGFlow is an open source Retrieval Augmented Generation engine that fuses RAG with agent capabilities into a context layer for large language models, built for developers and teams that need to turn complex, unstructured documents into production AI systems.
read the full ragflow overview →
About zcf
zcf is a zero config code flow CLI for Claude Code and Codex that installs the tooling, workflows, API/CCR provider settings, and MCP servers in a single command, and it is aimed at developers and teams who want a working AI coding agent setup without hand editing configuration files.
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Frequently asked questions
Is ragflow or zcf more popular?
ragflow has 91,015 GitHub stars and zcf has 6,083. ragflow has the larger community by that measure.
Are ragflow and zcf free?
Both are open source. ragflow is licensed under Apache-2.0 and zcf under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ragflow and zcf?
ragflow is written in Go and zcf 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, ragflow or zcf?
Choose ragflow if you want the larger community (91,015 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose zcf if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.