head to head · open source
caveman vs rtk
caveman has 116,900 GitHub stars, 6,789 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rtk has 85,327 stars, 5,462 forks, 1,642 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caveman leads on adoption by 37% (116,900 vs 85,327 stars). caveman is written in Go under Apache-2.0; rtk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. caveman has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, rtk 6%. rtk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (anthropic, claude-code, llm), 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
| caveman | rtk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 117K | ★ 85K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 5.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caveman if
- You weight community size — 117K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rtk if
- You want the rtk 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 rtk fits your workflow better
About caveman
why use many token when few do trick Your AI coding agent bills by the word and writes like it knows that. Caveman make it stop. ▶️ ThePrimeagen reacts: "No way this actually works" 🏆 1 on GitHub Trending · July 2026 · 🥇 1 Repository of the Day on Trendshift · April 2026 1 on Hacker News · 904 points · 366 comments · 8 Product of the Day on Product Hunt 📄 Cited in CAVEWOMAN , an Adobe Research paper that measured caveman style output cutting cost 1.4 to 2.4×, up to 3× · 🧪 Tested by JetBrains on 86 real coding tasks: "costs you nothing measurable in quality" ⚡ One command, no account, no API key. npx skills…
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About rtk
High performance CLI proxy that cuts up to 90% of the bash output your agent reads Website • Install • Troubleshooting • Architecture • Discord English • Francais • 中文 • 日本語 • 한국어 • Espanol • Português rtk filters and compresses command outputs before they reach your LLM context. Single Rust binary, 100+ supported commands, Full explanation: How RTK Savings Work Installation Homebrew (recommended) winget (Windows) Easiest way to install on Windows — one command, no PATH setup needed: Quick Install (Linux/macOS) Installs to /.local/bin . Add to PATH if needed…
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Frequently asked questions
Is caveman or rtk more popular?
caveman has 116,900 GitHub stars and rtk has 85,327. caveman has the larger community by that measure.
Are caveman and rtk free?
Both are open source. caveman is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rtk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caveman and rtk?
caveman is written in Go and rtk 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, caveman or rtk?
Choose caveman if you want the larger community (116,900 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rtk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.