head to head · open source
Temporal vs relay
Temporal has 24,138 GitHub stars, 2,068 forks, 956 open issues and last shipped yesterday. relay has 1,089 stars, 95 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Temporal leads on adoption by 2,117% (24,138 vs 1,089 stars). Temporal is written in Go under MIT; relay is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Temporal has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, relay 9%. Temporal 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
| Temporal | relay | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 95 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Temporal if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick relay if
- You want the relay feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and relay fits your workflow better
About Temporal
Temporal—durable execution platform Introduction • Getting Started • Contributing • Temporal Docs • Temporal 101 Introduction Temporal is a durable execution platform that enables developers to build scalable applications without sacrificing productivity or reliability. The Temporal server executes units of application logic called Workflows in a resilient manner that automatically handles intermittent failures, and retries failed operations. Temporal is a mature technology that originated as a fork of Uber's Cadence. It is developed by Temporal Technologies, a startup by the creators of…
read the full Temporal overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Temporal or relay more popular?
Temporal has 24,138 GitHub stars and relay has 1,089. Temporal has the larger community by that measure.
Are Temporal and relay free?
Both are open source. Temporal is licensed under MIT and relay under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Temporal and relay?
Temporal is written in Go and relay in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Temporal or relay?
Choose Temporal if you want the larger community (24,138 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose relay if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.