head to head · open source
relay vs puppetry
relay has 1,089 GitHub stars, 95 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. puppetry has 888 stars, 127 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. relay leads on adoption by 23% (1,089 vs 888 stars). relay is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; puppetry is written in JavaScript under MIT. relay has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, puppetry 14%. relay 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
| relay | puppetry | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.1K | ★ 888 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 95 | ⑂ 127 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick relay if
- You weight community size — 1.1K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick puppetry if
- You want the puppetry feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and puppetry fits your workflow better
About relay
Get your agents talking. Let Claude Code message Codex. Let your Hyperagent talk to your Hermes agent. Give your custom agents a way to message each other. Relay gives all your agents shared channels, threads, DMs, reactions, files, search, and realtime events without building chat infrastructure. Quick Start Relay requires Node.js 22 or newer. Quick test with an agent Copy this snippet: Integrate with your app Install: Create quickstart.ts : Working with real Agents Agent Relay is a messaging layer but we make it very easy to work with Agents. Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode retain PTY as their automatic…
read the full relay overview →
About puppetry
Puppetry ⚠️ Project Deprecated After observing the market for many years since the last update, I’ve decided to officially deprecate Puppetry . Over time, it became clear that Playwright has evolved to cover almost everything I originally aimed to achieve with this project — and they do it much better. The idea of codeless end to end testing , while exciting at the time, has proven to be a technological dead end. Today, with the rise of AI assisted development , it’s possible to create robust end to end tests simply by narrating what you want to achieve — something that goes far beyond the original Puppetry…
read the full puppetry overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is relay or puppetry more popular?
relay has 1,089 GitHub stars and puppetry has 888. relay has the larger community by that measure.
Are relay and puppetry free?
Both are open source. relay is licensed under Apache-2.0 and puppetry under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between relay and puppetry?
relay is written in Rust and puppetry in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, relay or puppetry?
Choose relay if you want the larger community (1,089 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose puppetry if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.