head to head · open source
one-api vs RWKV-Runner
one-api has 36,963 GitHub stars, 6,868 forks, 1,036 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. RWKV-Runner has 6,482 stars, 601 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. one-api leads on adoption by 470% (36,963 vs 6,482 stars). one-api is written in JavaScript under MIT; RWKV-Runner is written in TypeScript under MIT. one-api has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, RWKV-Runner 9%. RWKV-Runner was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api, chatgpt), 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
| one-api | RWKV-Runner | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-01-09 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 601 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick one-api if
- You weight community size — 37K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick RWKV-Runner if
- You want the RWKV-Runner feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and RWKV-Runner fits your workflow better
About one-api
One API is a self hosted LLM API management and key redistribution system that exposes many model providers through the standard OpenAI API format, aimed at developers, teams and operators who want a single endpoint, a single key model and a single quota surface across providers.
read the full one-api overview →
About RWKV-Runner
RWKV Runner is a management and startup tool for RWKV, an open source large language model that is available for commercial use. It ships as a lightweight executable of only a few megabytes and automates the work of getting a model running, so that the user does not have to assemble the runtime, dependencies, and serving stack by hand. The project is written in TypeScript and built with Wails, and it is distributed under the MIT license from the josStorer repository. It lives in the RWKV ecosystem and in the broader local inference tooling space, with a companion site at rwkv.com.
read the full RWKV-Runner overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is one-api or RWKV-Runner more popular?
one-api has 36,963 GitHub stars and RWKV-Runner has 6,482. one-api has the larger community by that measure.
Are one-api and RWKV-Runner free?
Both are open source. one-api is licensed under MIT and RWKV-Runner under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between one-api and RWKV-Runner?
one-api is written in JavaScript and RWKV-Runner in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, one-api or RWKV-Runner?
Choose one-api if you want the larger community (36,963 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose RWKV-Runner if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.