head to head · open source
rancher vs werf
rancher has 25,922 GitHub stars, 3,222 forks, 3,371 open issues and last shipped yesterday. werf has 4,721 stars, 239 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rancher leads on adoption by 449% (25,922 vs 4,721 stars). rancher is written in Go under Apache-2.0; werf is written in Go under Apache-2.0. rancher has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, werf 5%. rancher was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (docker), 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
| rancher | werf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 239 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rancher if
- You weight community size — 26K 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 werf if
- You want the werf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and werf fits your workflow better
About rancher
Rancher is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Go based open source container management platform for organizations that deploy containers in production and need to run Kubernetes everywhere while meeting IT requirements and empowering DevOps teams.
read the full rancher overview →
About werf
werf is a CNCF Sandbox command line tool, written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0, that implements full cycle CI/CD to Kubernetes for teams that already build container images and deploy with Helm but want one tool to carry an application from build through deploy, release artifacts and container registry cleanup.
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Frequently asked questions
Is rancher or werf more popular?
rancher has 25,922 GitHub stars and werf has 4,721. rancher has the larger community by that measure.
Are rancher and werf free?
Both are open source. rancher is licensed under Apache-2.0 and werf under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rancher and werf?
rancher is written in Go and werf in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rancher or werf?
Choose rancher if you want the larger community (25,922 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose werf if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.