head to head · open source
rea vs portal
rea has 385,786 GitHub stars, 96,619 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. portal has 1,039 stars, 93 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. rea leads on adoption by 37,031% (385,786 vs 1,039 stars). rea is written in TypeScript under MIT; portal is written in Clojure under MIT. rea has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, portal 9%. rea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | portal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 386K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Clojure |
| Last push | 2026-10-25 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 97K | ⑂ 93 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rea if
- You weight community size — 386K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick portal if
- You want the portal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Clojure
- You evaluated both and portal 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 portal
portal A clojure tool to navigate through your data. [![cljdoc][cljdoc badge]][cljdoc] [![Clojars Project][clojars badge]][clojars] [![PyPI][pypi badge]][pypi] [![VS Code Extension][vscode badge]][vscode] [![Version][intellij badge]][intellij] [![Get help on Slack][clojurians badge]][clojurians] The portal UI can be used to inspect values of various shapes and sizes. The UX will probably evolve over time and user feedback is welcome! For an in depth explanation of the UI, you can jump to the [UI][ui concepts] docs. Demo To get an overview of the Portal UI and workflow, checkout the following recording of a [live…
read the full portal overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rea or portal more popular?
rea has 385,786 GitHub stars and portal has 1,039. rea has the larger community by that measure.
Are rea and portal free?
Both are open source. rea is licensed under MIT and portal under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rea and portal?
rea is written in TypeScript and portal in Clojure. 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 portal?
Choose rea if you want the larger community (385,786 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose portal if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.