head to head · open source
rowboat vs earthly
rowboat has 17,871 GitHub stars, 1,776 forks, 167 open issues and last shipped yesterday. earthly has 12,047 stars, 457 forks, 744 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. rowboat leads on adoption by 48% (17,871 vs 12,047 stars). rowboat is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; earthly is written in Go under MPL-2.0. rowboat has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, earthly 4%. rowboat 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
| rowboat | earthly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 457 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rowboat if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick earthly if
- You want the earthly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and earthly fits your workflow better
About rowboat
Rowboat is an open source desktop AI coworker, licensed Apache 2.0 and written in TypeScript, that maintains a memory of your work as a local Markdown knowledge graph and provides built in surfaces — email, notes, browser, code mode, meeting notes — for acting on that memory.
read the full rowboat overview →
About earthly
Earthly is a container based build and CI/CD framework that runs every pipeline inside containers so the same build executes identically on a laptop, a colleague's machine, or any CI system, and it is built for engineers and platform teams who maintain build logic across monorepos or polyrepos and are comfortable with Dockerfile and Makefile style syntax.
read the full earthly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rowboat or earthly more popular?
rowboat has 17,871 GitHub stars and earthly has 12,047. rowboat has the larger community by that measure.
Are rowboat and earthly free?
Both are open source. rowboat is licensed under Apache-2.0 and earthly under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rowboat and earthly?
rowboat is written in TypeScript and earthly in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rowboat or earthly?
Choose rowboat if you want the larger community (17,871 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose earthly if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.