head to head · open source
rtk vs SWE-agent
rtk has 80,930 GitHub stars, 5,134 forks, 1,642 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SWE-agent has 20,355 stars, 2,225 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. rtk leads on adoption by 298% (80,930 vs 20,355 stars). rtk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; SWE-agent is written in Python under MIT. rtk has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, SWE-agent 11%. rtk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (developer-tools, 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
| rtk | SWE-agent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 20K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.1K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rtk if
- You weight community size — 81K 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 SWE-agent if
- You want the SWE-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and SWE-agent fits your workflow better
About rtk
rtk is an Apache 2.0 Rust CLI proxy that sits between an AI coding agent and the shell, filtering and compressing command output so 60 90% fewer tokens reach the model, and it is built for developers running agentic coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex against real repositories.
About SWE-agent
SWE agent is a Python, MIT licensed open source project in the AI assisted coding and agent ecosystem. It is an agent based model for developer tools that takes a GitHub issue and tries to automatically fix it using a chosen language model. The project is associated with NeurIPS 2024 and is maintained by researchers from Princeton University and Stanford University.
read the full SWE-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rtk or SWE-agent more popular?
rtk has 80,930 GitHub stars and SWE-agent has 20,355. rtk has the larger community by that measure.
Are rtk and SWE-agent free?
Both are open source. rtk is licensed under Apache-2.0 and SWE-agent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rtk and SWE-agent?
rtk is written in Rust and SWE-agent in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rtk or SWE-agent?
Choose rtk if you want the larger community (80,930 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose SWE-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.