head to head · open source
rea vs Orbital
rea has 422,352 GitHub stars, 105,329 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Orbital has 361 stars, 14 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. rea leads on adoption by 116,895% (422,352 vs 361 stars). rea is written in TypeScript under MIT; Orbital is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. rea has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, Orbital 4%. rea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (java), 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 | Orbital | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 422K | ★ 361 |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 105K | ⑂ 14 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rea if
- You weight community size — 422K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Orbital if
- You want the Orbital feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Orbital 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 Orbital
Website • Docs • Blog Get in touch Orbital automates integration between your data sources. It's decentralized by nature there's no central mapping code defined. Instead, Orbital is powered by the API specs you're already building. Orbital creates integration on the fly, without engineers having to write glue code. Get started right now, by spinning up Orbital on your machine. Grab the docker compose.yml at Note that some of Orbital's test features leverage platform specific docker features. So, either visit the above in a browser and download the file (we'll work out the correct one to serve you), or... curl H…
read the full Orbital overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rea or Orbital more popular?
rea has 422,352 GitHub stars and Orbital has 361. rea has the larger community by that measure.
Are rea and Orbital free?
Both are open source. rea is licensed under MIT, and Orbital has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between rea and Orbital?
rea is written in TypeScript and Orbital 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 Orbital?
Choose rea if you want the larger community (422,352 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Orbital if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.