head to head · open source
rea vs mex
rea has 438,499 GitHub stars, 108,648 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mex has 1,794 stars, 152 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. rea leads on adoption by 24,343% (438,499 vs 1,794 stars). rea is written in TypeScript under MIT; mex is written in TypeScript under MIT. rea has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, mex 8%. rea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (agent-skills, claude-code), 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
| rea | mex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 438K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-07 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 109K | ⑂ 152 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rea if
- You weight community size — 438K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mex if
- You want the mex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and mex fits your workflow better
About rea
English · 简体中文 · 繁體中文 · 日本語 · 한국어 · Türkçe · Русский · Tiếng Việt · ไทย · Deutsch · Español · Français · Українська · Polski · Português (Brasil) · العربية · فارسی REA: Reverse Engineer Anything One MCP for reverse engineering across binaries, applications, and runtime behavior. See a feature you like. Understand how it works, down to the binary level. Website · Guides · Showcases Quick start · How REA works · What you can analyze · Showcases · FAQ · Documentation npx rea agents setup Join the Reverse Engineering Community Discord · Q&A · Show and Tell See a feature in an app that you want in your own product?…
About mex
Shared project memory for engineers and their coding agents. MEX keeps your team's architecture, decisions, requirements, and handoffs alongside the code. Engineers and their agents can build on shared context, review proposed changes, and carry work between sessions and teammates—with Git as the sharing layer. English 简体中文 Español Português (Brasil) Team memory · A teammate handoff example · Project Hub · Quick start · How it works · Command map One engineer knows why a constraint exists. Another has the debugging history. A coding agent found an important edge case in a session nobody else will read. The next…
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Frequently asked questions
Is rea or mex more popular?
rea has 438,499 GitHub stars and mex has 1,794. rea has the larger community by that measure.
Are rea and mex free?
Both are open source. rea is licensed under MIT and mex under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rea and mex?
rea is written in TypeScript and mex 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, rea or mex?
Choose rea if you want the larger community (438,499 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.