head to head · open source
rtk vs Tabby
rtk has 80,883 GitHub stars, 5,130 forks, 1,642 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tabby has 33,884 stars, 1,789 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. rtk leads on adoption by 139% (80,883 vs 33,884 stars). rtk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Tabby is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. rtk has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Tabby 5%. rtk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (developer-tools), 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 | Tabby | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 34K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-06-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.1K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 Tabby if
- You want the Tabby feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Tabby 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 Tabby
Tabby is a self hosted, open source AI coding assistant that acts as an on premises alternative to GitHub Copilot, aimed at developers and engineering teams that want code completion and chat without routing source code through a third party cloud service.
read the full Tabby overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rtk or Tabby more popular?
rtk has 80,883 GitHub stars and Tabby has 33,884. rtk has the larger community by that measure.
Are rtk and Tabby free?
Both are open source. rtk is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Tabby has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between rtk and Tabby?
rtk is written in Rust and Tabby 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, rtk or Tabby?
Choose rtk if you want the larger community (80,883 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Tabby if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.